A Simple Moment of Inertia Measurement

Modern MEMs gyros/accelerometers allow the angular velocity of pendula to be precisely measured and the angular acceleration to be calculated. For a compound pendulum, Ipθ¨=−mgasinθ, where a is the distance of the center of mass from the pivot, so the moment of inertia Ip of the compound pendulum ab...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Physics teacher 2022-04, Vol.60 (4), p.292-295
Main Author: Hinrichsen, Peter F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Measurement
Motion
Physics
Scientific Concepts
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Summary:Modern MEMs gyros/accelerometers allow the angular velocity of pendula to be precisely measured and the angular acceleration to be calculated. For a compound pendulum, Ipθ¨=−mgasinθ, where a is the distance of the center of mass from the pivot, so the moment of inertia Ip of the compound pendulum about the pivot can be simply derived as Ip=−mga/θ¨(θ=π/2) from measurements of the angular acceleration θ¨(θ=π/2) when the pendulum is horizontal. Then mga can be determined by measuring the force and lever arm required to maintain the pendulum in a horizontal position.
ISSN:0031-921X
1943-4928
DOI:10.1119/10.0009995