Rashed Al-Rashed

Week 7 Seek&Geek: Broom Holder

While driving around Colorado this past week, I noticed an interesting broom holder in a
specialty goods store which made use of jamming to keep brooms securely fastened.
 Wall

Curve

Puck

In the above image, you can see parts of the mechanism by which this broom
holder functions. A puck rolls along a curve hidden behind the front panel. A broom is
placed into the slot from below, displacing the puck. The puck then rolls down the curve,
making contact with the broom. The puck and the broom then jam, stopping the broom
from sliding downwards. A series of sketches detailing this process is presented below.
 I would expect that, if the puck-curve surface was very well lubricated (thus
lowering the frictional coefficient), the puck would simply move out of the way instead of
jamming. For this week’s Seek&Geek, I attempted to determine the necessary
conditions for the jamming mechanism to successfully engage.

A force balance performed on the puck results in a relation between the frictional
coefficient and the angle of contact between the puck and curve (angle determined by
the relative radii of the puck and curve, along with the gap between the broom and
curve). This relation indicates the point at which the puck will start to slip – if the
frictional coefficient is less than the value indicated by the equation above, the frictional
force will not be sufficient to keep the puck in place. It is worth noting that the result
does not include the weight of the broom in the final result, indicating that (as expected)
the conditions for jamming are a simple balance of geometry and friction. The weight of
the broom likely doesn’t come into play until the point where it’s heavy enough that
some part of the system yields. From what I observed at the store, I’d estimate the
angle of contact between the puck and curve to be around 20 degrees °, resulting in a
minimum frictional coefficient of 0.18. This found value is lower than typical wood-wood
frictional coefficients (0.25-0.50, see reference below), which means that this first-order
analysis is in the right ballpark!
Reference:
http://www.physlink.com/Reference/FrictionCoefficients.cfm