Moment of Inertia of Bike Wheel

[iaing94]

Hi, I have conducted a few simple experiments involving a very ordinary, road going bike wheel. I came up with a value for the moment of inertia of 0.17kgm²

I really have no idea if I am in the right ballpark with that value, would anybody be able to enlighten me as to if that is a feasible value?

Thanks

 

[phyzguy]

A typical road wheel weighs about 0.9 kg, and has a diameter of 0.7 m, so a radius of 0.35 m. If all of the weight is concentrated in the circumference (not a bad assumption), then the moment of inertia would be I = m*r^2 = 0.9 * 0.35^2 = 0.11 kg-m^2. So you sound a bit high, but maybe you just have a heavy wheel. My number of 0.9 kg is for a performance road bike. How much does your wheel weigh?