Yash Bhardwaj

PHYS 111A-012
Lab Partners: Deep Patel, Devon Zhen
4/5/16
Instructor: Yan Liu

Lab 127: Torque and Rotational Inertia

Objective
1) To experimentally determine the rotational inertia of a rotating body by measuring its
angular acceleration and applying the relation =I ;
2) To practice computation of rotational inertias for objects with different shapes (different
mass distributions).

Introduction
When a force is exerted on a rigid object pivoted about an axis, the object tends to rotate about
the axis. The tendency of a force to rotate on object about some axis is measured by a quantity
called torque . The magnitude of a single torque associated with the force F is define by
(1)

=F r

When F=force, r = shortest rotation distance between the line of F and axis of rotation O. If
the force F accelerates (or tries to rotate) a body counterclockwise the torque is positive, negative
otherwise.
If a rigid object free to rotate about a fixed axis has a net external torque

acting on it, the

object undergoes a rotational motion with an angular acceleration . This rotational motion
could be described by:
(2)

=I

,where I is the rotational inertia of the object about the fixed axis.
This equation is the rotational analog to Newton's second law in the particle under a net force
model. Rotational inertia I is a measure of the rigid object's resistance to change to its rotation
about the fixed axis, and it plays much the same role in rotational dynamics as mass does in
linear dynamics.
The rotational inertia of a rigid object (a system of particles) is defines as:
(3)

I = m i r 2i
i

, where mi is the mass of the ith particle and r i is its distance from the rotational axis.
Once the mass distribution of an object relative to the rotation axis is known, the rotational
inertia of the object rotating around this rotation axis could be calculated. For the same
object, when the rotation axis is different, its rotational inertia will be different. For an with
symmetric shape, the calculation of the rotational inertia could be greatly simplified, resulting in
a simple formula. In this case, once the mass and dimensions of the object are known, its
rotational inertia could then be calculated using the relevant formula.
Theoretically, the rotational inertia I of a disk with rotating axis through its center of mass is
1
2
given by I = 4 M R , where M is the mass of the disk and R is the radius of the disk. The
rotational inertia of I is given by

1
I= M (R 21+ R 22) , where M is the mass of the ring, R is the
1
2

inner radius of the ring, R2 is the outer radius of the ring.

To experimentally determine the rotational inertia of rotating body such as a disk and a ring in
this lab, a known torque is applied to the rotating body and the resulting angular acceleration,
, is measured.
Since

=I total

, we have

I total =

(4)
, where

is the torque caused by the weight hanging from the string which is wrapped around

the 3-step pulley of the rotational apparatus.

(5)

=rT

, where r is the radius of the step pulley about which the string is wound and T is the tension in
the string when the apparatus is rotating. Also, a=r , where a is the linear acceleration of
the string that is equal to the tangential acceleration of the step pulley.
Applying Newtons Second Law for the hanging mass, m, gives:
(6)

Fnet = F=mgT =ma

T =m(ga)

Once the linear acceleration of the hanging mass, m, is experimentally determined, the tension T,
torque and angular acceleration can be obtained to determine the total rotational
inertia.

Results (Data and Calculation)

R=0.015m
Table 1
Object

Mass (kg)

Radius (m)

Rotational Inertia (kg*m2)

Disk

M=1.4305

R=0.115

I=0.5MR2= 0.00946
I=0.25MR2=0.00473

Ring

M=1.4254

R1=0.0225
R2=0.0625

I=0.5M(R1+R2)2=0.00515

Table 2

Case

Disk1
Steppulley
and
shaft
Disk1
+
Ring
Disk2

Tension(N)

Torque
(Nm)

Total Rotational
Inertia

0.0056
0.0169
0.027

Angular
Accel.
(rad/s)
=a/r
0.652
2.087
3.557

T=m(g-a)

=rT

0.4896
1.4664
2.348

3.69
3.64

0.3055
0.308

0.006416
0.006468

175.714
173.333

3.651e-5
3.731e-5

0.05

3.55

0.3125

0.006563

169.048

3.882e-5

0.05
0.15
0.25
0.05

0.00474
0.0151
0.264
0.014

0.4898
1.468
2.443
0.4893

0.0056
0.0169
0.0281
0.0056

0.412
1.313
2.296
1.217

0.0136
0.0129
0.0122
0.0046

Hanging

Linear

1
2
3

Mass,
m(kg)
0.05
0.15
0.25

Accel.
a(m/s2)
0.0075
0.024
0.0409

1
2

0.05
0.05

3
1
2
3
1

Run

Itotal=/
0.00859
0.008098
0.00759

2
3

0.15
0.25

0.0446
0.0723

1.4633
2.432

0.0168
0.028

3.878
6.287

0.0043
0.0044

Table 3
Case
Disk1
Disk2
Ring

Rotational Inertia (kg*m2)

Theoretica
Experimental
l
0.00946
0.0081
0.00473
0.0044
0.00515
0.00481

% Difference
14.38%
6.98%
6.60%

Disk1 = Disk through center of mass; Disk2 = Disk

through diameter

Disk1 = Disk through center of mass

Disk2 = Disk through diameter

Discussion and Questions

1. How good is your experimental result compared to the theoretical one? What could
be the possible error sources?
Though our results are very close, there was still error to be expected. We believe that this
error is because of minor things such as friction in the string, machine error, and
calculation error.

Conclusions
In conclusion, the lab was very informative. We learned a lot about the Torque force and
its relation to tension. We learned how to apply the laws of the Moment of Inertia within rotating
bodies. Though we encountered slight error, we discovered that it was most likely due to the
unknown rotational inertia of the pulley.