Analytic study of a rolling sphere on a rough surface

Abstract

In this paper it is realized an analytic study of the rolling's sphere on a rough horizontal plane under the action of its own gravity. The necessities of integration of the system of dynamical equations of motion lead us to find a reference system where the motion equations should be transformed into simpler expressions and which, in the presence of some significant hypothesis to permit the application of some original methods of analytical integration. In technical applications, the bodies may have a free rolling motion or a motion constrained by geometrical relations in assemblies of parts and machine parts. This study involves a lot of investigations in the field of tribology and of applied dynamics accompanied by experiments. Multiple recordings of several trajectories of the sphere, as well as their treatment of images, also followed by statistical processing experimental data allowed highlighting a very good agreement between the theoretical findings and experimental results.