Experiment 1 : Rolling Disc on an Inclined Plane

Objective
To understand the relationships of mass moment of inertia, angular acceleration, and angular
velocity of a disk rolling down an inclined plane.
The experiment is explained by the figure 1 below and the following calculations of formulas.

mg cos

mg sin

mg
Inner
radius, r

Figure 1: Rolling Disk Dynamic Modeling

mg sin

M O I O ;

1
2

t2

r I O

mgr sin
IO

Apparatus

Two carriers for the inclined plane, height adjuster, an angulometer, a meter stick, thre bubble
levels for the alignment, two disks.

Procedure
1. The system was set up in horizontal position. To make sure the system is really in
horizontal position, the bubble levels were checked to be on center.
2. The first angle was set up to be 1o and adjusted with the height adjuster.
3. The large disk was put in its starting rest position. The time was taken from the starting
point until when the disk reaches the end of the plane, which is one meter. This step was
repeated for 3 times to get a good average.
4. Repeat the steps above with small disk.
5. The angle is set to different value which are 3o, 5o, 7o,and 9o. The steps above are
repeated.

Results
1. Large Disk
1

2. Small disk
1

Data and Calculations

(
|

)(

1. Large Disk

Angle (o)

tt (s)

te (s)

24.17

30.84

0.6848

13.97

14.01

10.83

7
9

0.4206

% Error
(t)
27.63

% Error
()
38.58

2.0537

2.0379

0.29

0.77

10.82

3.4120

3.4167

0.09

0.14

9.15

8.83

4.7822

5.1303

3.62

7.28

8.07

7.18

6.1385

7.7591

11.03

26.40

2. Small Disk

Angle (o)

tt (s)

te (s)

16.92

18.23

1.398

9.77

9.67

7.57

7
9

1.204

% Error
(t)
7.74

% Error
()
13.88

4.191

4.278

1.02

2.08

7.43

6.979

7.246

1.85

3.80

6.40

6.10

9.759

10.750

4.69

10.15

5.65

5.28

12.527

14.348

6.55

12.69

Discussions
From the table, it is understood clearly that the difference between angular acceleration of
both disks by theoretical and experimental are not very large. For large disk, e is smaller than
t for angle 1o and 3o. This is due to the factor of the disk which did not really travel in a straight
path due to banging to its side-by-side of the plane apparatus, resulting higher total distance than
1 meter, thus affecting the result. For angle 5o, 7o and 9o, e is greater than t. We believe that
the disk starts to slip at angle 5o. That explains why the e is greater than t.
For large disk, it is discussed that at big angle, slipping will occur, and like stated earlier,
this clearly shows that when slipping occurs, it is not exactly 100% rolling happening. This is
because static friction become higher when angle is bigger. And as we all know, static friction
has its limit, and when it has exceeded its limit, kinetic friction occurs and the disk tends to slide.
That affected to the time recorded, as sliding is faster than rolling in this particular experiment.
For small disk, it is concluded that it starts off slipping before rolling on the plane.
Logically explained, the small disk will slip at a lower angle than the large disk due to the factor
of higher acceleration, which resulting the e being higher than t . That is explained by the fact
that the smaller the mass, the higher the angular acceleration. It is also considered that the results
that were obtained here were not really accurate since we do not have enough time. We have
made some mistakes in the beginning of the experiment and we were forced to repeat the whole
experiment due to our mistakes.
There are some problems that we encounter in this experiment. For example, the plane is
cannot be setup to be in horizontal position. Thus, we changed to other plane. Fortunately, we
managed to get the results with minimum percentage of errors in the end of the experiment.

There are many ways to reduce and overcome errors. First, we can always take the
average result to increase the accuracy. We must also use better condition apparatus and
materials during experiment. We have to be careful and focus during reading the scale to avoid
parallax error.

Conclusion
From the experiment, we can conclude that if the mass is smaller, the angular
acceleration is higher. As the degree of inclination increase, the time taken to roll down the disk
is decrease.