Question

An amusement park ride consists of a cylindrical chamber of radius R that can rotate. The riders stand along the wall and the chamber begins to rotate. Once the chamber is rotating fast enough (at a constant speed), the floor of the ride drops away and the riders remain "stuck" to the wall. The coefficients of friction between the rider and the wall are us and uk. 1. Draw a free body diagram of a rider of mass m after the floor has fallen away. 2. Is the rider on the wall accelerating? If so, in what direction? Should our FBD be balanced? 3. Write Newton's second law in the vertical direction. 4. Write Newton's second law in the horizontal direction. 5. If the ride takes a time T to go through one full revolution, what is the speed of the rider on the wall of the ride? 6. Assume that the ride is spinning just fast enough to keep the rider on the wall. Using the equations found in questions #3 and #4, calculate the minimum velocity to keep the rider suspended. 7. You get on the ride and notice another rider beside you who has twice your mass. If the ride is going just fast enough to keep you suspended, will the person beside you have a problem on the ride? 8. After a rider gets sick on the ride, the operator hoses down the walls of the ride, which reduces the coefficient of friction by half. What happens to the minimum velocity required for the rider to remain suspended?

Answer 1