Determining Moment of Inertia from Applied Torque and Measurements of Angle vs. time        9/10/01

In this experiment we will use rotational tables with shaft encoders on them.
The software is EncoderAD4.exe downloadable from the Resource page or here.

One wants to determine the moment of inertia of the disc assembly in this experiment.



Some numbers I have measured. If one of these numbers looks suspicious, re-measure it.  Otherwise just use the number below.

The plan is

You will need to use the formula

alpha  = mgr/(mr^2 + I), where m is the hanging mass, and r is the radius of the point of application of the force. (We used this for the bicycle wheel data.)

Write-Up.