The 360° Pendulum

Normally we think of a pendulum as a weight suspended by a flexible string or cable, so that it may swing back and forth. Another type of pendulum consists of a weight attached by a light (but inflexible) rod to an axle, so that it can swing through larger angles, even making a 360° rotation if given enough velocity.

Though it is not precisely correct in practice, we often assume that the magnitude of the frictional forces that eventually slow the pendulum to a halt is proportional to the velocity of the pendulum. Assume also that the length of the pendulum is 1 meter, the weight at the end of the pendulum has mass 1 kg, and the coefficient of friction is 0.5. In that case, the equations of motion for the pendulum are as follows.

Here t represents time in seconds, x represents the angle of the pendulum from the vertical in radians (so that x = 0 is the rest position), y represents the velocity of the pendulum in radians per second, and 9.81 is approximately the acceleration due to gravity in meters per second squared. Now we create a function that will numerically find the solution as a function of t for a given initial angle x0 and initial velocity y0.

Here is a phase portrait of the solution with x0 = 0 and y0 = 5. This is a graph of x versus y as a function of t.

Recall that the x coordinate corresponds to the angle of the pendulum and the y coordinate corresponds to its velocity. Starting at (0,5), as t increases we follow the curve as it spirals clockwise toward (0,0). The angle oscillates back and forth, but with each swing it gets smaller until the pendulum is virtually at rest by the time t = 20. Meanwhile the velocity oscillates as well, taking its maximum value during each oscillation when the pendulum is in the middle of its swing (the angle is near zero) and crossing zero when the pendulum is at the end of its swing.

Next we increase the initial velocity to 10.

This time the angle increases to over 14 radians before the curve spirals in to a point near (12.5,0). More precisely, it spirals toward (4&pgr;,0), because 4&pgr; radians represents the same position for the pendulum as 0 radians does. The pendulum has swung overhead and made two complete revolutions before beginning its damped oscillation toward its rest position. The velocity at first decreases but then rises after the angle passes through &pgr;, as the pendulum passes the upright position and gains momentum. The pendulum has just enough momentum to swing through the upright position once more at the angle 3&pgr;.

Now suppose we want to find, to within 0.1, the minimum initial velocity required to make the pendulum, starting from its rest position, swing overhead once. It will be useful to be able to see the solutions corresponding to several different initial velocities on one graph. We define a function that will draw the solutions corresponding to initial velocities v0 to v1 in increments of vinc.

First we consider the integer velocities 5 to 10.

Initial velocities 5, 6, 7 are not large enough for the angle to increase past &pgr;, but initial velocities 8, 9, 10 are enough to make the pendulum swing overhead. Let's see what happens between 7 and 8.

We see that the cut-off is somewhere between 7.2 and 7.4. Let's make one more refinement.

We conclude that the minimum velocity needed is somewhere between 7.25 and 7.3.