Finding Angular Velocity

maryanna

New member
Joined
Oct 15, 2009
Messages
1
So here's the question:
The Cleveland City Cable Railway had a 14-foot-diameter pulley to drive the cable. In order to keep the cable cars moving at a linear velocity of 16 miles per hours, how fast would the pulley need to turn (in revolutions per minute, 1mi = 5280 ft)?

Im pretty sure that Im just having trouble with the unit conversions. The correct answer should be 32.0 rpm. This is what I've been doing:

r=7 ft v=16mph
w=v/r
16mph x 60mins/1hr = 960 miles/min
7ft x 1mile/5280ft = 0.00322 miles

960miles/min divided by 0.001326 miles = 724114 radians/min

724114 radians/min x 1rev/2pi radians = 1137436.06 rpm

so as you can see im way off, and I have no idea where I went wrong.
 
maryanna said:
So here's the question:
The Cleveland City Cable Railway had a 14-foot-diameter pulley to drive the cable. In order to keep the cable cars moving at a linear velocity of 16 miles per hours, how fast would the pulley need to turn (in revolutions per minute, 1mi = 5280 ft)?

Im pretty sure that Im just having trouble with the unit conversions. The correct answer should be 32.0 rpm. This is what I've been doing:

r=7 ft v=16mph
w=v/r
16mph x 60mins/1hr = 960 miles/min <<< 16 miles/hour = 16/60 miles/min

7ft x 1mile/5280ft = 0.00322 miles

960miles/min divided by 0.001326 miles = 724114 radians/min

724114 radians/min x 1rev/2pi radians = 1137436.06 rpm <<<< 1137436.06 /3600 rpm

so as you can see im way off, and I have no idea where I went wrong.
 
Top