Artificial gravity is a must for any space station if humans are to live there for any extended length of time. Without artificial gravity, human growth is stunted and biological functions break down. An effective way to create artificial gravity is through the use of a rotating enclosed cylinder, as shown in the figure. Humans walk on the inside of the outer edge of the cylinder, which has a diameter of ?=3535 m that is large enough such that its curvature is not readily noticeable to the inhabitants. (The space station in the figure is not drawn to scale.) Once the space station is rotating at the necessary angular speed ? to create an artificial gravity of 1 ? , how many minutes would it take the space station to make one revolution?
revolution: minutes
Gravitational acceleration = g = 9.81 m/s2
Diameter of the cylinder = D = 3535 m
Radius of the cylinder = R = D/2 = 1767.5 m
Angular speed of the cylinder =
For artificial gravity to be 1g the centripetal acceleration should be 1g.
2R = g
2(1767.5) = 9.81
= 7.45 x 10-2 rad/s
Time taken to complete one revolution = T
T = 84.34 sec
T = 84.34/60 min
T = 1.406 min
Time taken by the space station to make one revolution = 1.406 min
Get Answers For Free
Most questions answered within 1 hours.