LABORATORY WORK #2

STUDY OF MOMENTUM OF INERTIA

WITH MAXWELL’S PENDULUM
PhysicVirtualLab Software Package

LABORATORY WORK #2

STUDY OF MOMENTUM OF INERTIA WITH MAXWELL’S PENDULUM

1. AIM OF THE WORK

Study the laws of mechanics for the rigid body by the example of its planar motion

TASKS:

 Experimental determination of momentum of inertia for the Maxwell’s

pendulum by its fall time;
 Calculation of momentum of inertia of Maxwell’s pendulum using the
theoretical formula.

2. INTRODUCTION

2.1 Basic Rotational Quantities

The angular displacement is defined by:

For a circular path it follows that the angular velocity is

and the angular acceleration is

where the acceleration here is the tangential acceleration.

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In addition to any tangential acceleration, there is always the centripetal

acceleration:

The standard angle of a directed quantity is taken to be counterclockwise from

the positive x axis.

Figure 1 -Basic Rotational Quantities

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2.2 Angular Velocity

Angular velocity can be considered to be a vector quantity, with direction along

the axis of rotation in the right-hand rule sense (Appendix 2). For an object rotating
about an axis, every point on the object has the same angular velocity. The tangential
velocity of any point is proportional to its distance from the axis of rotation. Angular
velocity has the units rad/s.

or

Angular velocity is the rate of change of angular displacement and can be described
by the relationship

and if v is constant, the angle can be calculated from

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Figure 2 -Angular velocity can be considered to be a vector quantity,

with direction along the axis of rotation in the right-hand rule sense

2.3 Torque
A torque is an influence which tends to change the rotational motion of an object.
One way to quantify a torque is

Torque = Force applied x lever arm

The lever arm is defined as the perpendicular distance from the axis of rotation to
the line of action of the force.

a)

b)

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c)

Figure 3- Three examples of torque exerted on a wrench of length 20 cm

2.4 Newton's second Law: Rotation. Rotational and Linear Example

The relationship between the net external torque and the angular acceleration is
of the same form as Newton's second law and is sometimes called Newton's second
law for rotation. It is not as general a relationship as the linear one because the
moment of inertia is not strictly a scalar quantity. The rotational equation is limited to
rotation about a single principal axis, which in simple cases is an axis of symmetry.

A mass m is placed on a rod of length r and negligible mass, and constrained to

rotate about a fixed axis. If the mass is released from a horizontal orientation, it can
be described either in terms of force and acceleration with Newton's second law for
linear motion, or as a pure rotation about the axis with Newton's second law for
rotation. This provides a setting for comparing linear and rotational quantities for the
same system. This process leads to the expression for the moment of inertia of a point
mass.

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In the setting, where gravity causes the mass to rotate downward, the descriptions
must be equivalent. So we can express the angular quantities in terms of the linear
quantities. This reinforces the basic definition of the moment of inertia of a point
mass:
Substituting in the rotation equation gives:

𝑚 ,

𝑚 (For a point mass)

2.5 Moment of Inertia Examples

Moment of inertia is defined with respect to a specific rotation axis. The moment
of inertia of a point mass with respect to an axis is defined as the product of the mass
times the distance from the axis squared. The moment of inertia of any extended
object is built up from that basic definition. The general form of the moment of inertia
involves an integral.

For a point mass the moment of inertia is just the mass times the radius from the
axis squared. For a collection of point masses (figure 4a) the moment of inertia is just
the sum for the masses.

For an object with an axis of symmetry (figure 4b), the moment of inertia is some
fraction of that which it would have if all the mass were at the radius r.

𝑘𝑚

Sum of the point mass moments of inertia (figure 4c)

∑𝑚 𝑚 𝑚 𝑚 ⋯

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Continuous mass distributions require an infinite sum of all the point mass
moments which make up the whole (figure 4d). This is accomplished by integration
over all the mass.

∫ 𝑑𝑚

Figure 4 - Moment of Inertia Examples

As noted above for a point mass the moment of inertia is just the mass times the
square of perpendicular distance to the rotation axis, I = mr 2. That point mass
relationship becomes the basis for all other moments of inertia since any object can be
built up from a collection of point masses (figure 5).

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Figure 5 - Common Moments of Inertia

3. EXPERIMENTS DESCRIPTION

Maxwell’s pendulum represents a disk, whose axis is suspended on two turning

on it threads (figure 1). It is possible to study experimentally dynamics laws of
translational and rotational motions of rigid body using this pendulum, as well as the
main law of physics − the law of mechanical energy conservation. Having rotated the
pendulum, we raise the disk to height h and let go down without push, then the disk is
starting to go down and at the same time to rotate around its horizontal axis. At the
same time trajectory of all points of the disk lie in parallel plane (surface). Such
motion of rigid body is called planar. It can be considered as the translational motion
of the body, which is occurring with the velocity of center of mass (center of gravity,
center of inertia) and at the same time as the rotational motion around horizontal axes,
passing through this center.
The equation of motion for the center of gravity and rotation of pendulum
relatively to mentioned axes has the following form:
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𝑚 𝑚 (1)

(2)

where m is mass of the pendulum, I is momentum of inertia, а is acceleration of

gravity center, ε – angular acceleration of the pendulum, Т is tension of the thread, r is
radius of tube.
Taking into account, that the accelerations in this case are connected with each
other by the relation , we obtain from formulae (1) and (2):

(3)

From the last relation comes that the center of mass of the pendulum moves with
constant acceleration, which depends on the body’s momentum of inertia. This
circumstance is the basis of this theory.
From the relation (3) with taking into account the formula of the path for
uniformly accelerated motion h = at2/2, we obtain the calculation formula:

[ ], (4)

where D = D0 + d.
Thus, to determine the momentum of inertia of the Maxwell’s pendulum, it is
necessary to measure time t of its fall from given height h, to define its mass m, and
diameter of the tube D0 and thickness d of thread.
3.1 Description of experimental device.

The general view of Maxwell's pendulum is shown on figure 6. This device

consists of pendulum, electromagnet, two photoelectric sensors, electronic timer
which is connected with the sensors. On the disk of the pendulum puts over one of the
removable rings, that allows to change its mass and momentum of inertia of the
pendulum. Electromagnet holds the pendulum at the upper position if the current is

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running through its winding. Length of the pendulums suspension (height h) is being
changed by the millimeter scale, which is marked at the vertical column.

Figure 6 – Maxwell’s pendulum

3.1 Procedure

3.1.1 The path of the virtual lab, which has name “Maxwell.exe”.
3.1.2 On the interface of the project you see the following four buttons:
“Theory”, “Tests for access”, “Test after lab” and “Lab”.
3.1.3 Read the theory of the experiment, if you didn’t it yet.
3.1.4 Tests of access and defends can be used by the recommendation of the
teacher.
3.1.5 By the clicking on the “Lab” you can set up the number of measurements.
After that you can start the experiment.
3.1.6 The number of measurement is changing automatically. In every
experiment you should change the height of the pendulum. Diameter of the
tube is D0 = 1 cm, thickness of the thread is 0.1 mm. The mass of the
pendulum will be given for every student individual. Run the experiment
and write down time of fall in milliseconds, but don’t change the mass of
the pendulum. Write down the results of the measurements in Tabale1.

Table 1- Readings of the measurements

№ h,m m,kg t, I, <I>, D0,m d,m Itheory, kg·m2

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sec kg·m2 kg·m2

3.1.7 Calculate the momentum of inertia I for every value of time t using the
formula (4).
3.1.8 Calculate the mean value <I> and estimate its absolute ΔI and relative
uncertainty using the Student’s method with probability λ = 0,95.
3.1.9 Calculate the theoretical value of the moment of inertia of the pendulum
Itheory using the following formula:

[𝑚 𝑚 ( ) 𝑚 ( )] , (5)

where the diameter of the disk is Dd= 10 cm, the diameter of the ring is Dr=7 cm,
mass of the disk is md= 35 gram , mass of the tube is m0= 5 gram , mass of the ring
depends on total mass of the pendulum, which you have obtain from teacher, i.e. if for
example mass of pendulum is m= 6 gram, then mass of ring is mr= 25 gram.
3.2.10 Compare Itheory with the value of <I>.

4 QUESTIONS:

4.1 Give the definition for Maxwell’s pendulum? Why do we call it pendulum?
4.2 Formulate momentum of inertia for Maxwell’s pendulum.
4.3 What will be the moment of inertia respect to the fixed axis?
4.4 What will be the mechanical energy of the body in translational and
rotational motion? In what case mechanical energy conserves?
4.5 Why formula of momentum of inertia for Maxwell’s pendulum J includes
diameter of the pendulum’s rod, but not the diameter of the disk? Does J
depend on diameter of the disk?
4.6 How pendulum’s period of oscillation will change, if mass of pendulum
increases and its geometrical size remains the same?
4.7 From what does fall time of the Maxwell’s pendulum with fixed height h
depend?

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4.8 How does center of mass of the pendulum move? From what does its
acceleration depend?
4.9 What is the mechanical energy of the pendulum at the upper position? At the
lower position? What is the relation between these values?
4.10 Point out reasons of the uncertainty in experiment and deviation of
experimental and theoretical values.
4.11 What is the reason for damping of Maxwell’s pendulum oscillations?
4.12 Give the definition for mechanical energy conservation law.
4.13 What mechanical transformations take place during the process of
Maxwell’s pendulum oscillations?
4.14 What is the analogy between main characteristics of translational and
rotational motion?
4.15 Evaluate error in calculation of Maxwell’s pendulum momentum of inertia.

5 REFERENCES:

5.1 Raymond A. Serway,John W. Jewett Physics for Scientists and Engineers,

2006.
5.2 Irodov I.E. Fundamental laws of mechanics, 2001.
5.3 http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hph.html.

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Appendix

Rotational-Linear Parallels

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Rotation Vectors

Angular motion has direction

associated with it and is inherently a vector
process. But a point on a rotating wheel is
continuously changing direction and it is
inconvenient to track that direction. The
only fixed, unique direction for a rotating
wheel is the axis of rotation, so it is logical
to choose this axis direction as the direction
of the angular velocity. Left with two
choices about direction, it is customary to
use the right hand rule to specify the
direction of angular quantities.

Directions of Angular Quantities

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As an example of the directions of angular quantities, consider a vector angular

velocity as shown. If a force acts tangential to the wheel to speed it up, it follows that
the change in angular velocity and therefore the angular acceleration are in the
direction of the axis. Newton's 2nd law for rotation implies that the torque is also in
the axis direction. The angular momentum will also be in this direction, so in this
example, all of these angular quantities act along the axis of rotation as shown.

Angular Momentum Change

A force tangential to the wheel produces a torque along the axis as shown (right
hand rule). The change in angular momentum is therefore along the axis and the
wheel increases in angular velocity. However, if the torque direction is perpendicular
to the axis of the wheel the effect is very different. The change in angular velocity is
perpendicular to the angular velocity vector, changing its direction but not its
magnitude. The resultant motion of the wheel around a vertical axis is called
precession.

Examples of integration to get moment of inertia

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Rod Moment Calculation

The moment of inertia calculation for a uniform rod involves expressing any
mass element in terms of a distance element dr along the rod. To perform the integral,
it is necessary to express eveything in the integral in terms of one variable, in this
case the length variable r. Since the total length L has mass M, then M/L is the
proportion of mass to length and the mass element can be expressed as shown.
Integrating from -L/2 to +L/2 from the center includes the entire rod. The integral is
of polynomial type:

Moment of Inertia: Cylinder

The expression for the moment of inertia of a solid cylinder can be built up from
the moment of inertia of thin cylindrical shells.
Using the general definition for moment of inertia:
The mass element can be expressed in terms of an infinitesmal radial thickness dr by
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Substituting gives a polynomial form integral:

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