Stonehenge 181
Image by moss
Stonehenge

Stone Shifting 2

I carried out a small scale practical experiment to check the computer model. I used a 900x150 pin kerb balanced on a stack of concrete paving blocks 400mm high. When it hit the ground (not a hole) it continued to rotate by only about 50mm from the stone blocks. That's nowhere near what my model had predicted. I went back to the model and found the problem: When a block is pivoting about its end, the moment of inertia is 4 times larger than when it rotates about its middle. I had accounted for this, but had forgotten about the principle "conservation of momentum". What I should have done is to also divide the angular speed by 4 to maintain the same angular momentum. When I made this correction, the model now behaves very similarly to the pin kerb. However, this upsets all the figures I gave in my previous message. So please ignore them.

I've got a fairly busy day today so I'll have to wait until tonight to do any more, but "I'll be back".

Right I got a few moments free to upload the computer model to the web. The address is http://www.swifttools.com/Stoned.zip. Download the zip file, unzip it to a temporary folder, run setup.exe from the temporary folder, then follow the installation wiz. The installation program does not install a desktop icon, but you can start the program from Start/Programs/Stoned/Stoned.

The figures in blue can be changed, the black ones are calculated by the program. "Run" will make the block fall, "Step" will execute one time step (normally 0.1 seconds), "Reset" will return the block to the start as will changing any essential parameters. When running the "Run" button changes to "Pause". When paused you can single step by clicking "Step" or continue by clicking "Run". The display is automatically scaled (arbitrarily) to fit the picture on the screen. It only checks the length and depth of the block and the height of the tower, so it's possible to get off-screen display if you use silly values for the offset, etc. As the block falls, the centre of the block and the bottom far corner of the block leave a trace of red dots so that you can see the trajectory.

All the uploaded files were virus checked with the latest pattern files. Have fun. Let me know if you find any bugs or if you find that it disagrees with any real experimentation you have done.