The figure is a birds-eye (i.e., top-down) view of a hand-driven carousel in a park. Four parents of the children riding on the device each push on the carousel in different ways. The forces exerted by each of the four parents and the positions at which the forces are exerted are labelled, and are not to scale. What is the angular acceleration of the system (carousel plus children), if the system has a moment of inertia of 1.0 x 102 kg m²? Take counterclockwise as positive.
Rigid Body
A rigid body is an object which does not change its shape or undergo any significant deformation due to an external force or movement. Mathematically speaking, the distance between any two points inside the body doesn't change in any situation.
Rigid Body Dynamics
Rigid bodies are defined as inelastic shapes with negligible deformation, giving them an unchanging center of mass. It is also generally assumed that the mass of a rigid body is uniformly distributed. This property of rigid bodies comes in handy when we deal with concepts like momentum, angular momentum, force and torque. The study of these properties – viz., force, torque, momentum, and angular momentum – of a rigid body, is collectively known as rigid body dynamics (RBD).
Trending now
This is a popular solution!
Step by step
Solved in 2 steps with 2 images