Let's consider a track that begins vertically becomes a 450 degree loop, and level off. (See diagram)
We drop a block from height H that falls and goes around the loop. Ignoring air resistance, but taking into account a friction coefficient of μ against the track, find the smallest H for which the block will complete the loop.
By conservation of energy I have obtained the following equation:
mgH=mv(θ)22+mgR(1+μ−sin(θ))+mμR∫θ0(gsin(θ)+v(θ)2R)dθ
Where v(θ) the the block's speed at θ, and θ is an angle measured between the block's position (centred at loop center) and a horizontal line going left-wards.
The left hand side is gravitational potential energy, the first term on the right is kinetic energy, the next one is also gravitational potential energy, and the last one - the work done by friction.
Dividing by m, differentiating with respect to θ, and using the chain rule on the first term on the right hand side we obtain:
0=v(θ)dv(θ)dθ+gR(μsin(θ)−cos(θ))+μv(θ)2
Assuming the block doesn't make it, because it lost's its speed to friction, let's find θ for which V(θ)=0. Substituting we get:
0=μsin(θ)−cos(θ)
But it is totally counter intuitive (and incorrect by experiment), that this point depends only on μ and not on the initial height H. So where did I make the mistake? Could somebody please clarify.
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