A playground merry-go-round of radius 1.96 m has a moment of inertia 335 kg m2 and is rotating at 12.3 rev/min. A child with mass 43.1 kg jumps on the edge of the merry-go-round. What is the new moment of inertia of the merry-go-round and child, together? Answer in units of kg m2.
add them: Inew=335 kg m^2+43.5*1.96^2 kg m^2
Thank you, but what equation do you use? I cant seem to get the correct answer.What happens to the rev/min? Is it: inertia+child mass*radius^2
The rev/min is not needed.
here is the equation:
momentofINertiatotal=momentinertiaMerryGoRound + momentinertiaKid.
Then you add them.
That is it. Now, if the problem goes on, you may need to find what the new angular speed is, but that is a different problem, you didn't ask that.
if you want to find the final angular speed, wf, you take:
momentinertiaMerryGoRound(initial angular speed) = (momentinertiaMerryGoRound + momentinertiaKid)(wf)
then solve for wf