Theory

Trifilar Suspension
The Trifilar suspension is an assembly that is used to determine the moment of inertia of a body
about an axis passing through the body's mass centre, perpendicular to the plane of motion. (1)

The apparatus consists of a circular platform suspended by three equi-spaced wires of equal
length. The body under consideration is placed with its mass centre exactly in the middle of the
circular platform. The platform is given a small circular displacement about the vertical axis
through its center, and is released. The periodic time of the subsequent motion is obtained by
measuring the time taken to complete a definite number of oscillations. Then from the formula
the moment of inertia of the body can be calculated

Figure 1 (A Trifilar Suspension Apparatus)

Derivation

Reactions from figure;

𝑚𝑔
𝑇𝐴 =
3
As we know that S=rθ,

𝐴𝐴′ = 𝑙∅ = 𝑟𝜃

𝑟𝜃
∅=
𝑙
𝑚𝑔 𝑟𝜃
𝑇𝐴 𝑠𝑖𝑛∅ = 𝑇𝐴 . ∅ = . … … … … (1)
3 𝑙
𝑚𝑔 𝑟𝜃
𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑇𝑜𝑟𝑞𝑢𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 = . .𝑟
3 𝑙
𝑟2𝜃
𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑇𝑜𝑟𝑞𝑢𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 = 𝑚𝑔.
𝑙

𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑝𝑙𝑒 = 𝐼 ∝

𝑟2𝜃
𝐼 ∝= 𝑚𝑔.
𝑙
𝜃 𝐼. 𝑙
= … … … … . . (2)
∝ 𝑚𝑔. 𝑟 2

As we know that Time period will be

𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡(𝜃)
𝑇 = 2𝜋√
𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛(𝛼)

𝐼.𝑙
𝑇 = 2𝜋√ From eq. 2
𝑚𝑔.𝑟 2

So,

𝑚𝑔.𝑟 2 𝑇 2
𝐼=
4𝜋2 .𝑙

This is the Moment of Inertia of Trifilar Suspension.

References
1. Bifilar suspension. [Online] April 08, 2019. https://studymoose.com/trifilar-suspension-essay.