written by Maria Vélez, David Ambrosi Jalón, Diego García Maroto, Mario Gomez Alvarez, and Noé Méndez Hevia

The motion of an object in a loop without friction is a classical example of normal acceleration problems with non-uniform circular motion and of energy conservation laws in Introductory Physics Courses. However, in real life toy car set-ups, friction becomes an important ingredient to determine whether a car will run beyond the top of the loop or not.

This experiment analyzes the motion of a toy car in a loop with a dynamical model that considers the action of three forces: gravity (mg), Normal Force (N) and Friction (FR). A Cartesian coordinate system is used, with its origin at the initial point of the trajectory, at the bottom of the loop. The simulated trajectory obtained with Tracker Dynamic particle (Cartesian) model is compared with the experimental trajectory data from a slow motion video.

• Download Car_in_a_loop_with_friction.trz - 3316kb Tracker Document Set

Last Modified April 29, 2019

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A description of the Car in Loop Tracker experiment.

• Download Car in a loop with friction.pdf - 650kb Adobe PDF Document

Last Modified April 29, 2019

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