Friday, 15 May 2015

homework and exercises - Ball rolling down an inclined plane going in to a loop



I apologize if this question is not up to par. When I was doing exercises in basic mechanics I checked the answers and I can't seem to find what I'm doing wrong. Suppose we have a ball with mass m and radius r on an inclined plane with height h. At the end of the inclined plane is a loop with a radius of R and we can assume that $r<

We have U1Krot,2+Ktrans,2+U2.


For the ball rotating we have I=12mr2 and ω=vr.


So mgh12Iω2+12mv2+mg2R=34mv2+mg2R.


The minimal speed to complete the loop implies Fcentripetal=mv2R=mg


So v2=Rg and we have gh34Rg+g2R which means h234R, while the book says that the answer should be h2.70R. Can you explain what I am doing wrong?


Thank you


EDIT: Moment of inertia corrected.


For the ball rotating we have I=25mr2 and ω=vr.


So mgh12Iω2+12mv2+mg2R=710mv2+mg2R.



After the edit with correction of the moment of inertia I am getting the right answer. We get gh710Rg+g2R so h2710R in accordance with the book.



Answer



First thing, for a rotating ball, I=25mR2. You also need to be clear on what ω you are talking about.


The kinetic energy of a rotating ball is 12Icmω2cm+12mv2cm. Here, vcm=v. But, ωcm=vcm×rR. Since $r<



The main thing is is that you need to remember that the formula "Kinetic energy=rotational energy + translational energy" works only when you consider all rotations about center of mass. You cannot just keep tacking on terms for each motion you see. Even though the ball is revolving around the center of the loop, we still classify this as translational motion. If you don't do this, you can easily get confused while building the expression for KE.


Basically, for a ball of center of mass moment of inertia I, mass m, radius r, rotating about itself with ωcm, revolving in a circle of radius R with ω , the energy is NOT 12Iω2+12(I+mR2)ω2+12mv2, it is 12Iω2+12mv2=12Iω2+m(ωR)2.


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