If the moment of inertia of a body is increased, what happens to its angular acc
Practice Questions
Q1
If the moment of inertia of a body is increased, what happens to its angular acceleration for a constant torque?
Increases
Decreases
Remains the same
Becomes zero
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
If the moment of inertia of a body is increased, what happens to its angular acceleration for a constant torque?
Step 1: Understand what torque (τ) means. Torque is a measure of how much a force acting on an object causes that object to rotate.
Step 2: Know that moment of inertia (I) is a property of an object that determines how difficult it is to change its rotation. A larger moment of inertia means it's harder to rotate the object.
Step 3: Remember Newton's second law for rotation, which states that torque (τ) equals moment of inertia (I) times angular acceleration (α): τ = Iα.
Step 4: If the moment of inertia (I) increases while the torque (τ) remains constant, we can rearrange the equation to find angular acceleration (α): α = τ / I.
Step 5: Since τ is constant and I is increasing, the value of α (angular acceleration) must decrease because you are dividing a constant number by a larger number.
Moment of Inertia – The moment of inertia is a measure of an object's resistance to changes in its rotational motion, depending on the mass distribution relative to the axis of rotation.
Angular Acceleration – Angular acceleration is the rate of change of angular velocity, indicating how quickly an object is rotating faster or slower.
Torque – Torque is a measure of the rotational force applied to an object, which causes it to rotate around an axis.
Newton's Second Law for Rotation – This law states that the torque acting on an object is equal to the product of its moment of inertia and its angular acceleration (τ = Iα).