Chapter 6 – Rotation of Rigid Bodies

1. A shaft 15.0 cm in diameter is to be turned on a lathe with a surface linear speed of 180 m/min.
What is its angular speed?
2. A pulley 18.0 in in diameter makes 300 r/min. What is the linear speed of the belt if there is no
slippage? The belt passes over a second pulley. What must be the diameter of the second pulley if
its shaft turns at a rate of 400 r/min?
Ans. 1,410 ft/min; 13.5 min.
3. Assuming the orbit to be, to a first approximation, circular, calculate the angular speed of the earth
in its orbit around the sun.
4. What is the angular speed of each of the three hands of an electric clock?
Ans. 1.05 rad/s; 1.74 x 10-3 rad/s; 1.45 x 10-4 rad/s.
5. An earth satellite in a circular orbit 300 mi above the surface of the earth makes a complete
revolution in 96 min. Assuming the earth to be a sphere of radius 4,000 mi, calculate the angular and
linear speed of the satellite.
6. The moon is 384,000 km from the earth and makes 1 r in 27.3 d. Find its angular and linear speed in
its orbit.
Ans. 2.66 x 10-6 rad/s; 1.02 x 103 m/sec
7. A wheel has its speed increased from 120 to 240 r/min in 20 s. (a) What is the angular acceleration?
(b) How many revolutions of the wheel are required?
8. A flywheel revolving at 400 r/min slows down with a deceleration of 4.00 rad/s 2. How long will it
take the wheel to come to rest and how many revolutions will it make in doing so?
Ans. 10.4 s; 34.8 r.
9. What constant torque must be applied to a 200-lb cylindrical flywheel having a radius of 2.0 ft in
order to increase the angular speed by 1,800 r/min in 15 s?
10. A uniform circular disk 3.0 ft in diameter weighs 960 lb. What is its moment of inertia about its usual
axis?
Ans. 34 slug.ft2.
11. A cylinder 12.0 cm in diameter having a mass of 3.00 kg rests on a horizontal plane. Compute the
moment of inertia of the cylinder about an axis along the line of contact with the plane.
12. A 20-lb bowling ball 8 in. in diameter rolls along the ground at 20 ft/s. Find the moment of inertia
about its line of contact with the ground.
13. A solid cylinder of mass 2.00 kg and radius 8.00 cm is mounted with its axis horizontal. A thread is
wound around the circumference of the cylinder and a 200-g mass is hung on the end of the thread
and released. Neglecting friction, find the angular acceleration of the cylinder and the linear
acceleration of the mass.
14. A 400-lb flywheel has an effective radius of 2.0 ft. (a) What constant torque is required to bring the
wheel from rest to a speed of 120 r/min in 30 s? (b) How much work is done in this interval?
Ans. 21 ft.lb; 4,000 ft-lb.
15. A solid cylinder of mass 300 g and radius 1.5 cm starts from rest and rolls down a plane 1,470 cm
long inclined at 30o to the horizontal. How long will it take to descend if there is no loss of energy
due to friction? What will be its energy of rotation at the bottom?
16. What is the total kinetic energy possessed by a 20-lb bowling ball 8 in. in diameter rolling along the
alley without slipping at 20 ft/s?
Ans. 175 slug-ft2/s2.
17. A 50-g solid sphere is rolling without slipping along a horizontal surface at a speed of 800 cm/s. It
comes to a point where the surface rises 30 o to friction. (a) What is the total energy of the rolling
sphere? (b) To what vertical height will it roll up the plane?
18. A flywheel in the form of a disk 4.0 ft in diameter weighs 500 lb. What will its angular acceleration be
if it is acted upon by a net torque of 300 ft-lb?

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 Chapter 6 – Rotation of Rigid Bodies

Ans. 9.6 rad/s2.

19. If the disk in Prob. 18 is rotating at 1,500 r/min, what torque is required to stop it in 3.0 min?
20. A uniform disk of 12.0-in. diameter and 50.0-lb weight is mounted on an axle having a diameter of
1.00 in. A string is wrapped around the axle, and a constant force of 1.00 lb is exerted on it. What
speed will the wheel acquire in 3.00 min?
Ans. 38.5 rad/s.
21. The extremity of the hour hand of a clock travels one-eighteenth as fast as the extremity of the
minute hand. If the minute hand is 15.24 cm long, how long is the hour hand?
22. (a) What is the constant torque which must be applied to a flywheel weighing 400 lb and having an
effective radius of 2.00 ft if starting from rest and moving with uniform angular acceleration, it
develops an angular speed of 1,800 r/min in 10.0 s? (b) If the shaft on which the pulley is mounted
has a radius of 6.00 in and there is a tangential frictional force of 20.0 lb, how much must be the
total torque?
Ans. 942 ft.lb; 952 ft.lb
23. A steel ball rolls down an incline 200 cm long, making an angle of 4.0 o with the horizontal. It requires
3.00 s for the ball to reach the bottom of the incline after starting from rest at the top. Calculate the
value of g for this location.
24. A wheel of an automobile traveling 30.0 mi/h has an external radius of 14.0 in and weighs 80.0 lb.
Assuming the effective radius to be 10.0 in, find (a) the kinetic energy of translation, (b) the kinetic
energy of rotation, and (c) the total kinetic energy of the wheel.
Ans. 2,420 ft.lb; 1,260 ft.lb; 3,680 ft.lb
25. In the arrangement shown in Fig. 6-7, the solid disk and the pulley have the same radii, and the disk,
pulley, and bob have equal masses. The plane has a slope of 30.0 o; the disk rolls on the incline
without slipping or loss of energy. Find the acceleration of the hanging block.
Figure 6-7.

26. A 25-lb solid sphere is at the top of an incline 5.00 ft high and 13.0 ft long. What linear speed does
the sphere acquire in rolling down the slope?
Ans. 15.0 ft/s?
27. A spool of thread with an inner radius r1 and an outer radius r2 has a moment of inertia I0 about the
center of mass. The spool is pulled by a thread, as shown in Fig. 6-8, with a constant force F. Find the
linear acceleration of the spool if  = 0o. (Assume that the spool rolls without slipping.)
Figure 6-8.

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 Chapter 6 – Rotation of Rigid Bodies

28. The rotational inertia of an automobile wheel is found by hanging it on a knife-edge near the rim
and allowing it to swing as a pendulum. About this axis, which is 15.0 in from the axis through the
center of the wheel, the rotational inertia is 1.50 slug.ft 2. If the wheel weighs 20.0 lb, what is the
rotational inertia about the axis through the center?
Ans. 0.52 slug.ft2.

END