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Tracking The Coriolis Force

This document describes an activity using Tracker software to model the Coriolis force. Students are asked to analyze a video showing a ball being released on a rotating platform to determine: 1) The direction of the ball's velocity and the Coriolis force after release. 2) Expressions for the x and y components of the Coriolis force in terms of the ball's velocity, angular velocity, and mass. 3) Initial conditions and angular velocity value to model the ball's motion using the determined force expressions.

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Bartolome Simpson
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46 views

Tracking The Coriolis Force

This document describes an activity using Tracker software to model the Coriolis force. Students are asked to analyze a video showing a ball being released on a rotating platform to determine: 1) The direction of the ball's velocity and the Coriolis force after release. 2) Expressions for the x and y components of the Coriolis force in terms of the ball's velocity, angular velocity, and mass. 3) Initial conditions and angular velocity value to model the ball's motion using the determined force expressions.

Uploaded by

Bartolome Simpson
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Tracking the Coriolis Force1

Introduction: This activity requires Tracker (download it if you do not already have a version on your
computer) and the Coriolis.trk and Coriolis.mov files on ComPADRE:
http://www.compadre.org/osp/items/detail.cfm?ID=12042. It is based on the YouTube video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAX3ALdienQ . OpenCoriolis.trk in Tracker.

Describe the motion of the ball after the woman releases it:

How can you tell that the woman and man are in a non-inertial reference frame?

Immediately after the ball leaves the hand…

what is the direction of the velocity?

what is the direction of the force (i.e., the Coriolis force because the reference frame is non-
inertial)?

The Coriolis force is given by . Using your answers above, then, what is the
direction of the angular velocity, ? (You can check your answer by watching the full clip on YouTube).

If the angular velocity is only in the z-direction (into or out of the screen), what are the component of
the force in the x and y directions (in terms of vx, vy,  and m)?

Fx = _______________

Fy= _______________

You will use this to create a model of the motion. In Tracker, Create a new “Dynamical Particle Model”
track:

1
An extension of the exercise found at http://www.compadre.org/osp/items/detail.cfm?ID=10437 by A. Titus.
The Model Builder tool will open:
“Add” a new parameter,  (for the angular
velocity), and give it a value.

Then, enter a force function. For example, if you


found Fx=2m∙vx2∙w (this is incorrect!) then you
would type in

fx = 2*m*vx*vx*w (incorrect expression).

Please type in your expressions (the correct


ones) for fx and fy (if the box is yellow, push
“Enter” so Tracker will read the expression).

If you play your movie and track again, the


model still probably doesn’t change. This is
because we still need to define initial conditions.

To find the initial conditions, look at the original track (Green “Mass A”) track and find the initial
conditions from plots of position and velocity. Enter them into in your Model and the Table below:

Initial Values
t 0 Now, adjust your value of  so that the red
x “Model A” track matches the track of Mass A
y as closely as possible.
vx
vy  = ___________________

From the original YouTube video recording at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAX3ALdienQ,


estimate the angular velocity (watch a full revolution or half a revolution and record the time). What
value do you get for the angular velocity?

 = ___________________

If you recorded the motion of the ball from a camera fixed to the ground (instead of attached to the
reference frame), what would the motion look like and why?

The earth is a non-inertial reference frame (it rotates on its axis) yet we don’t often observe this effect
when we toss a tennis ball. Why not? (Hint: what is the value of  for the rotation of the Earth? How big
would v need to be to have a noticeable effect?)

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