Question

You are the safety officer for an amusement park ride in which passengers stand inside a 3.0 m tall, 5.0 m diameter hollow steel cylinder with their backs against the wall. The cylinder begins to rotate about a vertical axis. Then the floor drops. When this happens the passengers should “stick” to the wall. Clothing has a static coefficient of friction with steel between 0.60 and 1.0 and a kinetic coefficient of friction between 0.40 and 0.70. What would you recommend for the minimum rotation frequency in rpm so that the ride is safe?

Answer 1

Solution: -

use the concept of static friction the sufficient static friction b / w the cloths ofo passengers and the wall of t he cylinder is required to suppoprt to gravitational force of the passenger the minimum angular velocity corresponds to the maximum frictional force.

The free body diagram of the passenger is given as follows.

Here, mg is the gravitational force acting on the poassenger n is the normal reaction for -ve acting on the passenger by the wall of the cylinder and fs is the static frictional force.