A Rolling Sphere

Experiment
Adam Niculescu, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
T
he motion on an incline provides an effective
means for the discussion of the conservation
of mechanical energy and transformation
of potential into kinetic energy. Below are several
comments resulting from practical situations involv-
ing demonstrations of the accelerated motion on an
incline with the use of a rolling sphere.
Motion on an Incline
An object sliding down on a frictionless incline has
an acceleration that depends on the angle of the in-
cline (a = g sin ). A spherical object rolling down the
incline without slipping has a lower translational ac-
celeration than an object sliding without friction, since
part of the potential energy at the top of the incline
is converted into rotational kinetic energy (1/2 I
2
),
where I is the moment of inertia relative to the center
of mass (see Fig. 1).

(1)

The moment of inertia for a sphere is
where R is the radius of the sphere.
The relationship between the translational velocity
v of the center of mass and the angular velocity is v =
R. It is easy to calculate the acceleration of the center
of mass of the sphere (see, for instance, Ref. 1). From
the equation for the conservation of energy (1), one
gets for the velocity
(2)

The vertical displacement is related to the dis-
placement x along the incline by h = x sin , and the
velocity, acceleration, and displacement are related
through the relation v
2
= 2ax. By combining the three
equations, the acceleration of the center of mass of the
sphere is given by
(3)

In practical situations a spherical object can be used
to demonstrate the accelerated motion on an incline.
In this case the sphere can roll along a track made of an
aluminum u-shaped strip or a brass wall-shelving strip.
The sphere will roll along the strip by making contact
with the sides of the strip as shown in Fig. 2.
This arrangement requires a correction for the ac-
celeration that takes into account the effective radius
of rotation r, which depends on the gap between the
sides of the rail, as shown in the figure:

(4)

Fig. 1. Sphere rolling down an incline without slipping.
THE PHYSICS TEACHER Vol. 44, March 2006 DOI: 10.1119/1.2173322 157
158 THE PHYSICS TEACHER Vol. 44, March 2006
It is interesting to see how the effective radius of ro-
tation influences the acceleration of the sphere down
the incline. This can be developed as a project within
the motion on an incline that can be performed at the
high school level. Below is the description of such a
project.
The Experiment
When the sphere rolls down an incline on a track,
such as the one shown in Fig. 2, the equation for the
rotational energy KE
r
= 1/2 I
2
becomes

(5)

By following the same steps in Eqs. (1)(3), the
equation for the acceleration of the center of mass
becomes

or, as a function of the gap ,
(6)
In this experiment, the track has been made by
aligning two wooden boards parallel to each other
that allows for a variable gap between them as shown
in Fig. 3. The sphere used in the experiment was a bil-
liard ball of diameter 56.5 mm.
In order to minimize slippage, the boards were rub-
berized. A Vernier
2
motion detector interfaced with
the computer was used, and the distance versus time
was recorded for several angles of inclination and gap
width. A typical plot of the distance versus time is
shown in Fig. 4.
Two measurements were performed for each angle
and gap width. A quadratic best fit of each curve was
used,
y = A + Bx + Cx
2
,
for the equation of motion with constant accelera-
tion,
Fig. 2. Sphere rolling on a u-shaped strip. Fig. 3. Experimental setup. The motion detector is connected
to the interface, and the interface to the computer.
Fig. 4. Printout of a typical distance-vs-time plot for a roll-
ing ball.
THE PHYSICS TEACHER Vol. 44, March 2006 159
which gave the value of the acceleration a = 2C. The
experimental values of the acceleration for each angle
and gap width are plotted in Fig. 5, together with the
theoretical values obtained from Eq. (5).
As expected, the translational acceleration of the
sphere decreases when the gap increases. The calculated
values of the acceleration from Eq. (5) agree with the
measured ones within 10%.
References
1. R. Serway, Physics for Scientists and Engineers (Saunders,
Philadelphia, 1990).
2. Vernier Software & Technology, 13979 SW Millikan Way,
Beaverton, OR 97005-2886; http://www.vernier.com.
PACS codes: 45.40.Aa, 45.40.Bb
Adam Niculescu, associate professor of physics at
Virginia Commonwealth University, received his Ph.D. at
the University of Bucharest, Romania. He is the author of
the conceptual physics text: Wonders of Technology, Wiley,
1999, 2000, 2005.
Physics Department, Virginia Commonwealth
University, 1020 West Main, Richmond, VA 23284;
vanicule@vcu.edu
Fig. 5. Measured and calculated acceleration as a func-
tion of gap width and angle of inclination. The gap
widths are 1, 2, 3, and 4 cm. The angles of inclination are
2.8, 4, and 5.8 degrees.