Gravitron


Coefficient of static friction
0.5 1.0
0.8

This shows a toy version of the classic carnival ride (the Gravitron) in which the ride spins and you are pinned to the wall, rotating with the ride. In some versions, they even drop the floor out from under you. In this simulation, a block rotates with a cylinder, but the cylinder is slowing down at a constant rate. At some point, there is no longer enough force to keep the block up, so it slides down the wall. The right-hand view shows the block's free-body diagram.

Simulation first posted on 7-12-2016. Written by Andrew Duffy

Creative Commons License
This work by Andrew Duffy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This simulation can be found in the collection at http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/classroom.html.

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