Designing a spiral with a certain angle relative to movement direction

Click For Summary
The discussion centers on designing a spiral path for a disk moving from an inner to an outer track while maintaining a specific angle relative to its movement direction. The user expresses concerns about their calculations, particularly regarding the angle of 45 degrees and potential issues with division by zero in their derivative calculations. They explore the concept of equiangular spirals and their geometric properties, noting that these spirals maintain a constant angle, which contrasts with their initial intuition. The mechanics of the disk's movement are clarified, including the role of a pin and a wall that restricts track switching until a certain point is reached. The conversation concludes with an acknowledgment of the self-similar nature of the spiral design, emphasizing its mathematical elegance.
DefinitelyAnEnjinear
Messages
10
Reaction score
6
TL;DR
Designing a spiral with a 45 degree angle relative to the movement of a disk orbiting around a point
I have a disk traveling on the inner blue track (let's say the blue part is the center of the disk).
I want to push the disk outside (as the disk is traveling in a circle) to the outer track.
The black part is the wall separating the tracks

1664044007937.png

To that end, I've made some calculations, but I have some concerns regarding my results, and am wondering if there's a better way to go about it.
I have a decent math background, but no engineering background at all.

I started out by noting the direction of movement for the disk, say it's moving counter-clockwise. If c is a point on the inner circle (for simplicity: unit circle), then the movement direction is determined as follows:
1664044216960.gif

Also, some relevant trigonometric identities:
1664044360242.gif

where Δθ is the angle between u and v.

Let's say I want a 45 degree angle between my spiral and the movement direction of the disk (my very limited physics knowledge tells me a steeper angle would require more force to be applied because more of the "equal and opposite reaction" thing would be in the direction that's against the disk movement. Obviously a smaller angle would mean it takes longer to get the disk as far as I need it to go).
The sine and cosine of 45 degrees go without saying, yielding:
1664047123247.gif

And after doing some mathTM
1664044740436.gif

1664047195662.gif

So now we have v, which... I'm not sure how to put this into words in a technically accurate way, so let's say it's the direction of the tangent to the spiral. Meaning its slope is that of the derivative. Meaning:
1664048026581.gif

is the derivative of the function describing my spiral, with α being the angle between the x-axis and the vector pointing to some point on the circle.

This is the part where I start to get worried and confused, because (1) I potentially have a division by 0 here, and (2) the point is to move the disk during rotation and I'm not sure if my reasoning still holds at this point.

With a little help from wikipedia I got to:
1664048286861.gif

Being my derivative.
So if, say, I wanted to start the transition when we're at 45 degrees... I start off on a singularity.

So, did I get anything wrong? Is there a better approach to solving this problem?
 
Engineering news on Phys.org
Try researching "equiangular spiral" (or Bernoulli spiral or logarithmic spiral). Does that help?
 
  • Like
Likes The Bill and DefinitelyAnEnjinear
What is driving the rotation and what is forcing the disc to follow the circular trajectories and switch from one to another?
 
hutchphd said:
Try researching "equiangular spiral" (or Bernoulli spiral or logarithmic spiral). Does that help?
A brief look tells me the distances increase geometrically as opposed to an Archimedean spiral where the distances increase by a constant. Is this really what I should be looking at? my intuition tells me I need distances that increase by a constant, don't I?

Edit: I see now that the angle remains a constant according to wikipedia. counter-intuitive to me but it definitely seems like the answer.

Lnewqban said:
What is driving the rotation and what is forcing the disc to follow the circular trajectories and switch from one to another?
1664051376636.png

The disk will have a pin in it that will be able to move back and forth in a slot in a gear which will be driven.
There will be a wall preventing the disk from switching tracks until it reaches the point
I didn't want to complicate the question with details that seem unimportant.
 
DefinitelyAnEnjinear said:
intuitive to me but it definitely seems like the answer.
What I find interesting (and obvious, after you see it!) is that the spiral is self-similar: If you "blow it up" uniformly it can be laid atop the smaller version exactly (with a rotation). Of course that follows from the equal angle requirement. Fun.
 
  • Like
  • Informative
Likes The Bill and DefinitelyAnEnjinear
DefinitelyAnEnjinear said:
...
The disk will have a pin in it that will be able to move back and forth in a slot in a gear which will be driven.
There will be a wall preventing the disk from switching tracks until it reaches the point
I didn't want to complicate the question with details that seem unimportant.
I see.
Thank you.
 
My idea is that I want to use immerse Whitetail Antlers in a fishtank to measure their volumetric displacement (the Boone and Crockett system is the current record measurement standard to place in a juxtaposition with) I would use some sight glass plumbed into the side of the tank to get the change in height so that I can multiply by the tank cross-section. Simple Idea. But... Is there a simple mechanical way to amplify the height in the sight glass to increase measurement precision...

Similar threads

  • · Replies 5 ·
Replies
5
Views
3K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
1K
  • · Replies 18 ·
Replies
18
Views
2K
Replies
1
Views
485
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
2K
Replies
9
Views
2K
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • · Replies 17 ·
Replies
17
Views
3K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K