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29 November 2024 00:04
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Question |
| Asked by: |
George paddock |
| Subject: |
Precession due to drift |
| Question: |
I have two separate gyros, oriented such that their respective axes are parallel, and their masses spinning in opposite directions. If they are physically connected such that their axes remain parallel, will the precession
(of the "system") due to drift be zero? |
| Date: |
29 December 2012
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Answers (Ordered by Date)
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| Answer: |
Jerry Volland - 31/01/2013 18:05:43
| | | The precession will be zero if the gyros are side by side. If there is some longitudinal distance, along the axes, between the two gyros, they will behave as if they were on the same axis, to some extent, and then there would be precession.
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| Answer: |
Jerry Volland - 12/02/2013 09:41:02
| | | This counter rotating gyroscope system deserves a little deeper analysis. If the two gyros do precess, it will be around some point which is located between their axes. Now, if we take this point and designate it as being the center of a turntable, either gyro, acting as the only one present, will precess. This would be similar to the bicycle wheel experiment in which you place handles on each side of the wheel's axle, then spin it up, as a gyroscope. If you sit on a swivel bar stool holding the spinning wheel in front of you, precessional forces will immediately cause you to start rotating on the stool. Precession doesn't require that one end of the axis be supported, with the axis pointing straight out from the center of the circle. The gyroscopical mass itself can spin towards and away from the center, with the axis pointing in the direction of precession. Now, if we look at both gyros as being on opposite sides of the turntable, we can see that they both turn in the same direction, relative to the common center point. The turntable can be rotated 180 without changing the appearance or direction of the two spins. Both gyros will generate precessional forces and these forces will be additive. So it won't matter if the gyros are straight across from each other or not. The precession of the system will always be greater than zero. But I will say that I don't know if the force produced by the bicycle wheel is a true precession. It might just be a transfer of angular momentum from the wheel to the turntable.
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