Solving Crazy Salad Spinner's Puzzle: Find String Strength

[bohobelle]

Homework Statement

You grew up with a salad spinner that operates with a string attached to a wheel with a radius of 6 cm.
Unfortunately, the string broke last week and you need to get it working again before Thanksgiving. You
need to figure out how strong the replacement string must be in order to survive the holiday without
breaking. Under normal operations, it takes 0.2 sec for you to spin the salad from rest to 5 revolutions per
second. The basket of the spinner has a radius of 12 cm. You normally put 0.1 kg of wet spinach in the
spinner and you decide to make a conservative estimate, so you make calculations assuming that the
spinach is at the location that requires the most torque to get the spinner moving. What torque does the
string exert on the axle, and how strong a string do you need?

Homework Equations

torque = I(angular acceleration)

The Attempt at a Solution

I found the torque to be 0.23 Nm, but have absolutely no idea how to find the strength of the rope from there. Should I find tension?

 

[CWatters]

Yes. The string has to be capable of applying a force (=tension) via the 6cm radius wheel so that it produces the required torque.