AP Physics 1 : Circular, Rotational, and Harmonic Motion

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for AP Physics 1

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Example Questions

Example Question #33 : Circular And Rotational Motion

A solid bowling ball of mass  and radius  is traveling at a linear velocity of . What is the angular momentum of the ball?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The expression for angular momentum is:

Where I is the moment of inertia for a solid sphere:

And w is the angular velocity:

Plugging these in, we get:

Plugging in our values, we get:

Example Question #11 : Angular Momentum

A bowling ball of mass  and radius  is traveling down a slope with a vertical height change of . If the ball starts from rest, what is the final linear velocity of the ball as it reaches the bottom of the slope? Neglect air resistance.

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

Let's begin with the expression for conservation of energy:

Since the ball begins from rest, we can eliminate initial kinetic energy. Also, if we assume that the bottom of the slope has a height of 0, we can eliminate final potential energy to get:

Plugging in expressions, we get:

Where I is the moment of inertia for a solid sphere:

And w is the angular velocity:

Plugging these in, we get:

Rearranging for final velocity, we get:

Plugging in our values, we get:

Example Question #11 : Angular Momentum

Two identical cars are racing side by side on a circular race track. Which has the greater angular momentum?

Possible Answers:

The outside car

They are the same

Impossible to determine

The inside car

Correct answer:

The outside car

Explanation:

Where  is the radius of the circle

 is the mass of the object 

 is the linear velocity of the object

The car on the outside has a larger  and a larger , and the same , thus it has a higher angular momentum.

Example Question #36 : Circular And Rotational Motion

 weight on a  rope is swung around at  until it comes into contact with a resting  brick on flat ground. The brick travels . What is the coefficient of kinetic friction between the the brick and ground?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The first part of this problem is a transfer between angular and linear momentum. Conservation of momentum tells us that we can equate the angular momentum of the pendulum to the linear momentum of the brick, or , where  and  are the masses of the pendulum and brick respectively,  is the angular velocity of the pendulum in  is the length of the pendulum rope, and  is the resultant velocity of the brick. We find that the resulting velocity of the brick can be written as 

The next part of the problem is identifying that the kinematic equations can be used here to find the acceleration the brick undergoes as it comes to a stop. Here we can use , where  is the end velocity of the brick (zero),  is the deceleration it undergoes, and  is the distance the brick travels before coming to a stop. Solving for  we have that .

Lastly, we know that the kinetic friction force can be written as . Newton's second law says that this can be written as . Thus we find that .

Example Question #1 : Centripetal Force And Acceleration

A ball is attached to a string that is 1.5m long. It is spun so that it completes two full rotations every second. What is the centripetal acceleration felt by the ball?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

We are simply asked to find the centripetal acceleration, which is given by:

We were given  in the problem statement (radius will be equal to the length of the string), so we only need to find the velocity of the ball.

We are told that it travels in a circle with radius 1.5m and completes two full rotations per second. The length of each rotation is just the circumference of the circle:

The velocity can be found by multiplying that distance by the frequency:

Now we have all of our variables and can plug into our first equation:

Example Question #1 : Centripetal Force And Acceleration

An amusement ride is used to teach students about centripetal force. The ride is a circlular wall that you place your back on. The wall and floor then begin to spin. Once it reaches a certain rotational velocity, the floor drops, and the students are pinned to the wall as a result of centripital force.

A student of mass 50kg decides to go on the ride. The coefficient of static friction between the student and wall is 0.8. If the diameter of the ride is 10m, what is the maximum period of the ride's rotation that will keep the student pinned to the wall once the floor drops?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

There is a lot going on in this problem and it will take several steps to get to the answer. However, when you boil the question down, we are pretty much asked how fast must the ride spin so that the centripetal force on the student provides enough static friction to keep the student from falling. Let's work through this problem one step at a time.

First, let's figure out what minimal static frictional force is required. This force will be equal to the weight of the student; the student's weight will pull downward, while the friction of the wall pushes upward.

Now we can calculate the normal force required to reach that magnitude of frictional force. Note that the vector for the normal force will be perpendicular to the wal, directed toward the center of the circlel.

This normal force is the minimum centripital force required to keep the student pinned to the wall. We can convert this to centripital acceleration:

We can now convert centripital acceleration to a translational velocity using the equation:

Rearranging for velocity, we get:

This is the velocity that the outer wall of the ride must be spinning at. Since we know the radius of the ride, we can convert this velocity into a maximum period, the final answer:

If you weren't sure how to come about this equation, just think about your units. You know you need to get to units of seconds, and you have a value with units of m/s. Therefore, you need to cancel out the meter and get the second on top.

Example Question #1 : Centripetal Force And Acceleration

Candy companies have long strived to catch the attention of children. One item that does this particularly well is the gumball machine. A certain gumball machine has a column that is  tall with a spiral track of radius  on which the gumball travels. The slope of the track is  and the average frictional force exerted on the gumball as it travels down the track is . What is the the centripetal force on a gumball of mass  as it reaches the end of the track?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

We can use the expression for conservation of energy to solve this problem:

Substituting in our expressions for each variable and removing initial kinetic energy and final potential energy (which will each be zero), we get:

Rearranging for final velocity:

The only variable we don't have at this point is the distance the gumball travels. However, we can calculate it knowing the height of the track and its slope. We can imagine that the spiral track is unwound, creating a right triangle with an angle of 10 degrees and a height of 1.5m. For this triangle, the hypotenuse will be the total distance of the track.

Now that we have all of our variables, we can solve for the final velocity:

We can then use this to calculate the centripetal force on the gumball:

Example Question #2 : Centripetal Force And Acceleration

A boy is riding a merry-go-round with a radius of . What is the centripetal force on the boy if his velocity is ?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

For this problem, we use the centripetal force equation:

We are given the mass, radius or rotation, and the linear velocity. Using these values, we can find the centripetal force.

Example Question #1 : Centripetal Force And Acceleration

A ball of mass  is on a string of length . If the ball is being spun in vertical circles at a constant velocity and with a period of , what is the maxmium tension in the string?

 

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

First, we need to identify at which point in the circle the string is experiencing the most tension. There are two total forces in the system: gravity and tension. It is important to note that the tension isn't only resulting from gravity; it also includes the centripetal force required to keep the ball in circular motion. Thinking practically, we can say that the greatest tension will be when the ball is at its lowest point (gravity and tension are in opposite directions). At this point we can write:

Expand our terms for force:

We know the acceleration due to gravity, but we need to determine the centripetal accerleration. The formula for that is:

We know the radius (length of the string), so we need to develop an expression for velocity. We can use the period and circumference of circle:

Here, we use  to denote period.

Substituting this into the expression for centripetal acceleration:

Substituting this back into the equation for tension, we get:

We have all of these values, allowing us to solve:

Example Question #1 : Centripetal Force And Acceleration

A car of mass  is driving around a circular track of radius  at a constant velocity of . The centripetal force acting on the car is . If the car's velocity is doubled, what is the new centripetal force required for the car to drive on the circular track?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The equation for centripetal force is:

.

If is doubled and becomes ,  is quadrupled. Centripetal force is proportional to the square of velocity.

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