Lab 6, Problem 1: Moment of Inertia of a Complex System

Jason Woitalla
December 6th, 2019
Physics 1301W, Professor: N. Strobbe, TA: X. Xia
Abstract
Setting up a ring/disk/shaft/spool system, there are a few ways to calculate the
moment of inertia. A theoretical value can be computed by solving for the moment of
inertia of the individual components and using the parallel axis theorem. However,
this lab sets out to solve this problem using a more general way. Deriving an
equation for the moment of inertia using the acceleration caused by a hanging mass,
m, measured values of I can be found. The results found that using that method
measured values were within a 12% error of the theoretical value and were within a
5% precision. The residuals of the data showed a slightly random distribution of
values and values bounded by [-2,2]. The conclusion of the results is that the derived
equation is an accurate way to solve for the moment of inertia for a complex system.
Introduction
The goal of this lab is to experimentally find the moment of inertia of a ring/disk/shaft/spool
system (Figure 1). The experimental value will be compared to a theoretically calculated value
and compared. The moment of inertia will be found of the system with and without the ring
attached.

Figure 1: Diagram of the experiment setup. The ring, disk, shaft, and spool all spin together as
the hanging mass, m, falls to the ground.

Predictions
Before conducting the experiment, a method for calculating the moment of inertia needs to be
found. Analyzing the torques and forces, the hanging mass is creating a torque due to gravity on
the system and also provides a tension force. In the real-world system, friction is going to be a
factor, but that will complicate the prediction and analysis. To solve this, a large hanging mass
will be used to increase the tension force such that friction is negligible. Based on the forces in
Figure 1, the tension force is equal to this relationship.
T =mg−mg (1)
The torque on the system is created by the tension force so the total torque can be set equal to the
cross product of the tension force and radius of the system affected by the torque, the spool.

Figure 2: Diagram of all the forces and torques acting on the system. The torque of the pully is
the same as the ring/disk/spool/shaft system.
T∗r =Iα (2)
α is equal to the radius of the spool divided by the acceleration. Substituting that relationship into
equation 2, it can start to be rearranged to solve for I, moment of inertia. After all substitutions
and simplifications, the equation to predict the moment of inertia is shown in equation 3.
T∗r∗r
I measured=
a
2
m r (g−a)
I measured=
a

2 g
I measured=mr ( −1) (3)
a
Equation 3 gives a moment of inertia for the measured values of the experiment, but there is a
theoretical way of calculating the moment of inertia. By taking the individual components of the
ring/disk/shaft/spool system, the parallel axis theorem can be used such that the total moment of
inertia is the sum of all the components’ individual moments of inertia. The moment of inertia
for an object can be found using the following equation

I =∫ r dm
2

Compared to the ring, disk, and shaft the spool’s mass is so small that it’s negligible, so the
theoretical moment of inertia will not take the spool into account to simplify analysis. Solving
for their individual moments of inertia, equation 4 gives the theoretical moment of inertia.
 2 2 1 2 (
I theory =mrod r +mring r + m r
2 disk 4)

Procedure
A total of six hanging masses were used for a total of six trials. Each trial would start with the
hanging mass wrapped around the same tier of the spool about 80cm above the ground and was
then released. The first three trials were done with the ring attached to the system, the last three
were without the ring. A total of three masses were used, for trials 1 and 4 the mass was 250g,
for trials 2 and 5 the mass was 210g, and for trials 3 and 6 the mass was 170g. A video of the
hanging mass was recorded and analyzed in motion lab. From this data, an acceleration value
was measured to be used in equation 3. The masses of the ring, disk, and shaft were also
collected to be able to compute the theoretical values for the moment of inertia using equation 4.
After all the videos were processed in motion lab, the data was imported into Excel to be further
analyzed.

Data
Videos of all six trials were imported into motion lab and analyzed to find the acceleration. From
there, the moment of inertia values was found and are shown in Figure 3. In order to reduce
error, a large timestep was used when analyzing the videos, so that the uncertainty in time was
not too small. For the 120fps video, the time step was between 5-10 frames.

Moment of Inertia vs Trial

1.40E+05
1.20E+05
1.00E+05
8.00E+04
6.00E+04
4.00E+04
2.00E+04
0.00E+00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Trial

Figure 3: Moment of inertia for each trial, the value was found using the acceleration provided from
motion lab and equation 3. Error bars have been included using the uncertainty given by equation 5. For
trials 4-6 the ring was removed from the system, which is why the moment of inertia drops in value.

The mass of the shaft was 222.5g with a radius of 0.66±0.005cm. The mass of the disk was
1364.6 and a radius of 11.45±0.005cm. The mass of the ring was 1431.1g with a radius of
6.35±0.005cm. The uncertainty for all radiuses was given from the caliper used to measure them.
The mass of the spool is negligible compared to the other masses.
 Analysis
After the videos were processed by motion lab, the data was put into Excel to be analyzed. Using
Excel, an equation for the best curve data was generated from the position vs time data provided
form motion lab. Then, the second derivative of that equation was found to give a value for
acceleration. From that same data set, the linest function was used to find the uncertainties of the
acceleration.
First, the theoretical values of I need to be found using equation 4. For the value of I with the
ring, it is found to be, I =147,252 g • cm2 and the value for I without the ring is found to be,
2
I =89,546 g •cm . These values can now be compared to the measured values found from
equation 3. Uncertainty for I will be found using equation 5.

√
mg r 2 2
g 2 (5)
δI ≈ (
δa) +(2 m( −1)rδr)
a
2
a
To get a complete picture of how the theoretical and measured values compare, three analysis
equations will be used. Shown in the equations below.
I measured −I theory (Percent Error)
I theory
I measured −I theory (Residual)
δI measured
δ I measured (Precision)
I measured
Figures 4, 5, and 6 show the results of these equations.

Percent Error
14.00%
11.72%
12.00%
10.00%
Percent Error

7.42%
8.00%
5.67%
6.00%
4.00% 2.66%
1.82% 2.05%
2.00%
0.00%
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Trial

Figure 4: The percent error shows how far away the measured value is from the theoretical
value. For useable data percent error should remain under 20%. This is the case for all trials
with the highest percent error being 11.7%.
 Precision
3.50%
2.98%
3.00% 2.62%
2.50% 2.28% 2.33%
1.97%

Precision
2.00%
1.50% 1.12%
1.00%
0.50%
0.00%
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Trial

Figure 5: The precision for the data shows how close the data is to its uncertainty. For useable
data, precision should be under 10% which is true for all trials.

Residuals
2.00

1.50

1.00

0.50

0.00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
-0.50

-1.00

-1.50

Figure 6: The residual plot is a very useful plot to analyze. It shows how well the measured data
fit the predicted model. This residual plot has a semi-random distribution, trending positive, and
is within the bounds of [-2, 2].
Of the graphs shown, the residual plot is the most useful. The residual plot says how accurate
equation 3 is when trying to compute the moment of inertia. For healthy data, the residual plot
should be completely random with an even distribution between positive and negative values.
The residual plot should also be relatively close to 0 and not be outside the bounds of [-2, 2]. In
the case of Figure 6, the residual plot shows a slightly positive trend meaning it’s not completely
random. This is probably caused by some error in the lab. All points in Figure 6 are within [-2, 2]
which is a good sign.
Error in this lab can come from a few places. The biggest is the presence of friction. The
assumption that equation 3 made was that mass, m, would be large enough to make the friction
negligible, but it’s probable that friction was present.
 Conclusion
In conclusion, the model setup by equation 3 to solve for the moment of inertia is an accurate
model. The measured values of I were within a 12% error of the theoretical values and were
within 5% precision. Looking at how well the model fits a residual plot, shown in Figure 6, it
does have a slightly positive trend, but is close to 0. This means that the model is accurate but
there was some error present in the lab. Errors in the model came from the assumption that
friction is negligible. This assumption was based on the fact that the tension force was much
larger than the friction force. This experiment could be conducted further to use larger hanging
masses to see if the model is more accurate. Large time steps were used when finding the
acceleration in motion lab to yield a larger uncertainty in time, but with low values of the
acceleration, the time step could have been even greater. The final conclusion is that the model
for equation 3 does give a useable measured value for the moment of inertia of the
ring/spool/disk/shaft system.