Wednesday, March 29, 2017

rotational dynamics - Is work done in rolling friction?


I am confused by rolling friction.



Suppose you have a cylinder rolling which starts at rest at the top of an incline plane and begins to roll down the plane without slipping. Is work done by the incline on the cylinder?


I know from doing some problems that the total kinetic energy (translational and rotational) is $mgh$, which is true only if the only work done on the cylinder is by gravity. But also, the cylinder must have nonzero angular acceleration, so friction must be exerting torque on the cylinder, so work must be done by friction. One of these statements is wrong.




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