Curling

- a calculation without curlicues

Thorvald Forssner
Abstract
The calculation is very general and gives a simple explanation of the motion and curl of a
curling rock without any simplifications or extra conditions.
The equations of motion
A curling rock which slides without rotation describes a path which is a straight line.
If the rock rotates is the path curved. The path is seems to be a parabola and the rotation of the
rock is constant during the whole motion.
The weight of the rock is about 20 kg and at the bottom there is a circular running band with
the diameter 125 mm. (See figure below.)

The motion of a rigid body consists of the motion of the mass center (MC) and a rotation
around the mass center.
We chose a fixed coordinate system S with origin in the starting point and the x-axis along
the initial velocity v0 and a system S with the same direction of the axis but with origin in the
mass center of the stone.
The problem has three degrees of freedom, motion of CM in the xy-plane and rotation around
the z-axis.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

Consider an element d of the arc of the running band in Fig. 2.

The middle point P of this element has the velocity q=as, where a is the radius
of the running band and s the spin of the rock.
1

The velocity of the point P is given by

u ( v x qsin ) e x ( v y qcos ) e y ,

where v is the velocity of the mass center.

d F is the the friction force, orginating from d . The friction number ( ) is allowed to vary.

u
( ) n( )
d ,
d F ( ) n( )d - (v x q sin , v y q cos , 0 )

u
u
where n( )d is the correspond ing normal force.

The moment of d F with respect to the center of mass is ( r (acos , asin , h))

d M r d F ( h(v y qcos ), h(v x - qsin ), a(v x sin v y cos q)) f( )d .

1
where f( ) ( ) n( ).
u
The correspond ing moment from the normal force n ( ) d is

d M r n( )d k a(sin , - cos , 0) n( )d .
The principle of angular momentum
The components of the angular momentum in the x - and y - directions 0.

(d M dM ) (0,0, I z s), where I z is the moment of inertia w ith respect z - axeln.

v och q are constants during the integratio n.
2
2

v
f(
)
d
q
f( )cos d x 0

h
0
0

2
2

My
v
f(
)
d
q
f( ) sin d

0
x

h
0
0

2
2
2
v x f ( ) sin d v y f ( )cos( ) d q f( )d I Z s / a

0
0
0

Put S

f( )sin d , C

f( )cos d , D

f( )d !

The eqs. can now be written

Di vide by D and put S S' /D, C C' /D.

v y D qC M x 0

v x D qS M y 0
v S - v C - qD I s /a
y
z
x

v y qC M x /(hD)

v x qS M y /(hD)
v S v C q I s /(aD)
y
z
x

From the upper eqs. in (1) we get, if we call the right hand sides T resp. U
v x S v y C q(S 2 C 2 ) (M y S M x C)/(hD) T

v x C v y S (M y C M x S)/(hD) U
v S v C q I s /(aD)
y
z
x

(a)
(b)
(c)

(2)

(1)

The motion of the mass center

2

m
v
(v x qsin)n()d,

2
mv (v qcos)n())d
x
0 u y

With the same notation as above

mv x v x D qS D(v x qS),

mv y v y D qC D(v y qC)
From these equations we now form
v x S v y C D(v x S v y C q(S 2 C 2 ))/m DT/m

v x C v y S D(v x C v y S)/m DU/m ,

where according to (2 a, b)

(3)
(4)

T v x S v y C q(S 2 C 2 )

U v x C v y S.
The derivatives of Eqs. (2a) and (2b) give
v x S v y C v x S v y C q (S 2 C 2 ) 2q(SS CC ) T

v x C v y S v x C v y S U
These equations are compared with (3) och (4).
Identification gives
S C q 0, i.e S, C och q as are constants.
The right hand sides become
T -DT/m

U -DU/m
From Eq. (2 c) we get , as s 0, v x S v y C q. The derivative gives v x S v y C 0.
Identification with (3) gives T 0, Dq(S 2 C 2 1) 0 S 2 C 2 1, ty D, q 0.
Eqs. (2), (3) och (4) now are simplified to
v x S - v y C 0

v x C v y S DU/m
From Eq. (6) we get

(5)

v x S v y C q

v x C v y S U.

(6)

v2 U2 q2 , U v2 - q2 .
Upto now no restrictions have been laid on friction.
For the acceleration of the mass center, v , we put v - g, where is the effective friction number,
which is assumed to be velocity independent. See referens [1] and [2].
Squaring and addition of both sides of Eq. (5) gives
mg
v 2 (DU/m) 2 ( g) 2 and D
.
(7)
v2 - q2

As S 2 C 2 1 , S and C are constants, we write S sin och C cos.

Here is the constant angle between the x - axis and the direction of U.
To sum up we have the following equations :
Eqs. (5) are now
v x sin v y cos 0

v x cos v y sin g
which gives
v x g cos

v y g sin .
Eqs. (6) give

(9)

v x sin v y cos q

v x cos v y sin U,

(10)

(8)

where U v 2 q 2 .

In vector form : v U q .

U is perpendicular to q and therefore directed towards the center of the running band.

The force of friction F is opposite U.

Note that U and F has the same direction during the whole motion and there are only two
points on the running band, which fullfills this condition. See fig. 3A.

Fig. 3A shows the force of friction F for

the two possibilities.
U and F are directed along the radius.

Fig. 3B. If the force of friction dF (see p.2)

is greater at the back the resulting force
gives a deviation to the left.

There are two possibilitie s according to Fig. 3A. Which one to be chosen?

We are going to analyse fig. 3B. The backwards directed vectors show the contributions dF
to the friction force (se Fig. 2). The normal force is allways greater in the front than at the back.

1. For a overturned glass the forces dF are greater at the front than at the back,
resulting in a friction force F (see fig.3A) which pull backwards and to the right.
The deviation is to the right when the rotation is clockwise and sin 0,

2. On ice the friction force decrease with increasing normal force. The friction force F pulls backwards
and to the left according to Fig.3A (sin 0) .

The velocity dependence of the coefficient of friction ' has been studied by Jensen and Shelgeski [1],
Bartels [2], Penner [4] as an attempt to explain the reason to the curl without success.
Here ' is assumed to be independent of the velocity and we get very simple equations and
a good description of the motion, the latral displacement and so forth.
From now on only case 2 is considered. We use the initial condititions
v x v 0 , v y 0 when t 0 . From Eq. (10) we get
2

sin q/v 0 , cos v 0 q 2 /v 0 .

Integration of Eqs. (8) och (9 ) gives (' is a constant) the motion of the center of mass
2

v0 q2
v x g
t v0

v0

v g q t
y
v0

v0 q2 t2
x g
v0t

v0
2

q t2

v0 2

(11)
(12)

The equations (11) och (12) give a parabola, the symmetry axis of which has the angle with the x - axis.

Final values
v -' g gives the velocity of the mass center v -gt v0 .
v
The mass center is at rest when v 0, e.g. when final time is t 0 (v0 q) .
g
After that the motionis a pure rotation during the time t.
When v 0 the slowing down of the rotation begins, which is calculated from
I z s mga which gives s -

mga
t s0 .
Iz

The rotation stops whens 0, t

I x s0
. (Here I z 0.38 kgm2 )
amg

This time is short ( 1.4s).

Inserting t in Eqs. (11) and (12) gives

x

v 02 qv0
, y
.
2g
2g

q t ast
The last relation can now be written (q as) y
.
2
2

If N is the number of revolutions of the rock before it stops, we get t s 2N.

The maximal deviation sideways is

y aN,

i.e. y is prop. to the number of revolutions before the stone stops.

Trajectories
We are using the formulas (11) and (12) and chose the following values :
a 0.07 m, v 3.1 m/s , s 1.0 rad/s (1.6 varv p 10 s), 0.02.
0

Here 1.3 , t 15.5 s, y 0.55 m, x 24 m, N 2.5.

Fig. 4 show the trajectory.

Fig, 4

The shape of the trajectory for different values of the friction number
= 0.015, 0.020, 0.025.
The coordinates of the endpoints (i m): (32, 0.73), (24, 0.55) resp. (19, 0.44).

The effect of sweeping

The figure below shows the trajectory for a rock, which is swept after 5 seconds (x=13 m).
The friction number changes from 0.020 till 0.016.
The trajectory is stretched out and is lengthened from 24 m to 27 m and the deviation
increases from 0.55 m to 0.67 m.

Final comments
A curling rock slides with the whole running band on the ice. This constraint means that the
motion has only three degrees of freedom, the motion of the center of mass and the spin.
This implies that several components must be constants.
The calculation offers several surprises:
The deduction is very general and no conditions have been laid on the friction
The spin is constant and the friction force is a constant vector during the whole motion.
It is very interesting that we in a natural way got two possible solutions (Fig. 3A, p. 4).
The trajectory is parabola.
The translation and the rotational motion stops almost at the same time.

References
[1] Jensen och Shelgeski The motion of curling rocks. Experimental investigation and
semi-phenomenological description, Canadian Journal of Physics 82, 791-809.
[2] Bartels, Mesoscopic Aspects of Solid Friction. (Bilaga.)
[3] Shegelski, Niebergall ,The motion of rapily rotating curling rocks, Australian Journal of
Physics 52(6) 1025-1038
[4] Penner, The physics of sliding cylinders and curling rocks, Am. J Phys 69 (3), March 2001.
[5] Macno, Dynanics and curl ratio of a curling stone, Sports Eng (2014) 17:13-41