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24 April 2024 12:20
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Welcome to the gyroscope forum. If you have a question about gyroscopes in general,
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Question |
| Asked by: |
jazz ray |
| Subject: |
basic forces acting on a gyroscope |
| Question: |
can someone please define the basic forces (torque, weight, etc) acting on the gyroscope and how they result in precession? |
| Date: |
12 April 2004
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Answers (Ordered by Date)
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| Answer: |
Venkat Gopalakrishnan - 27/07/2004 02:35:20
| | | Imagine a disk spinning at high speed with angular velocity "omega" in a vertcal plane. Then remember newtons first law. "Every body continues to be in a state of rest or of uniform motion unless commpelled by an external force". Each particle in the spinning disk will resist to change its plane of rotation. Now imagine the gyroscope instrument. Add some block of weights to the Gyro. Thus you have applied a Torque = Weight of block x distance from weight to midpoint of wheel thickness. This torque has to be counteracted by the gyroscope in some way and it does. This it does by precesion. By precessing each particle in the spinning disk is changing velocity by direction. This produces a counteracting torque. So precession keeps the gyroscope from maintaining its orientation inspite of the unbalanced torque. It can also be said that unbalaced torque causes precession. To explain how unbalanced torque produces precession, consider the moment the weights are being added. during this, the gyroscope tilts or leans to the heavier side. mometarily the particles in the spinning disk are changing orientation. This causes a precession torque in a horizontal plane perpendiculaar to the plane in which the gyroscope leans due to weights added. Hope this explains.
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