MOMENT OF INERTIA (E103)

ALCANTARA, Vince Louies A., BARBA, Juancho Joaquin P.

Mass of disk, M = 1478 grams Actual Moment of Inertia of

Disk:
Radius of disk, R = 11.5 cm
IDISK = 97732.75 g-cm2
Friction mass = 5 grams
Radius of shaft, r = 1.25 cm
Hanging mass, m Acceleration, a Expt. Moment of Inertia

30 grams 0.470 cm/s2 I = 97792.22gcm2

Percent 0.06%
Difference:

g= 981 cm/s2 2
Mass of disk, M = 1478 grams Actual Moment of Inertia of
Disk:
Radius of disk, R = 11.5 cm
IDISK = 48866.38 g-cm2
Friction mass = 5 grams
Radius of shaft, r = 1.25 cm
Hanging mass, m Acceleration, a Expt. Moment of Inertia

15 grams 0.470 cm/s2 I = 48896.11gcm2

Percent 0.06%
Difference:
 I. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Moment of inertia also known as rotational inertia is a quantity that determines the amount of torque needed for a
angular acceleration around a rotational axis. It can be seen in the table 1 that the percent difference for the disk rotating
around the center is equal to 0.06%. In table 2, the percent difference of the disk rotating at its diameter is also equal to
0.06%. It can be seen that as the mass increases the moment of inertia also increases. The disk rotated faster when it is
attached about the rotational axis than when it is at its diameter. It is faster because the angular momentum of a object is
lower when attached about the rotational axis compared to when it is attached in its diameter. Moment of inertia shows
us that the moment of inertia of a spinning object is slower when the particles are closer to the axis of rotation. There are
a lot of things where we can apply this law. Moment of inertia can affect how much power an engine bring to a vehicle
to increase its acceleration. Some examples also are how do propellers perform in air and sea and when an ice skater
brings his/her arm closer to their body to gain more momentum and spin faster.
II. ANSWERS TO ANALYSIS QUESTIONS
1. Since the torque is involved with products of force times distance or lever arm, a small force can exert a greater
torque than a big force if the small force has a large enough lever arm. An example of a small force with a great torque
is a screw driver and a nail. Since there is already an arm or an instrument that is used to move the nail it would be easy
to unscrew it and it would need less force to move it. While an example of a great force exerts a small torque is if a thing
is smaller than recommended size of a thing like if a mechanic not being able to loosen or unscrew a bolt due to short
wench.

2. Although the hollow sphere and solid sphere have same mass M and radius R, there rotational inertia would be
2
different. The moment of inertia for a solid sphere is 5 𝑚𝑟 2 , while the moment of inertia for a hollow sphere is
2
3
𝑚𝑟 2which means that the hollow sphere has greater moment of inertia than that of the solid sphere. This means that
more force is needed to rotate the hollow sphere. Despite both spheres having the same mass and radius the hollow
sphere’s mass is more concentrated around its edges which makes its moment of inertia higher.

3. When a string is tied to a ping pong ball there will be a force acting towards the axis of rotation known as the
centripetal force. Centripetal force is a force that causes uniform circular motion. The centripetal force F = 𝑚𝜔2 𝑟, m
being the mass of ping-pong ball, 𝜔 being the angular velocity of the ping-pong ball, and r being the distance between
the ping-pong ball and axis of rotation. With a same amount of torque, we will have torque = 𝑚𝜔2 𝑟 2 with angular 𝜔2
being proportional to 𝑟 −2 . This means that if the radius r will be lowered, the angular velocity increases and vice versa.
So, a ping-pong ball tied to a shorter string would rotate faster than that of the longer string.

III. References
1. Tatum, J. (2020, December 31). Moments of Inertia. Retrieved March 22, 2021, from
https://chem.libretexts.org/@go/page/6938Knowles, Beyonce. Ways how to teach Physics well.

Ling, S. J., Sanny, J., & Moebs, W. (2016). University physics (Vol. 1). Houston, TX: OpenStax, Rice
University.