The spinning egg: free and forced dynamics
Summary
In this thesis an understanding of the motion of spinning eggs is developed. First the movement of a freely rotating egg is studied and after that the interesting forced rise of a spinning egg is investigated.
A mathematical description of the egg and its orientation is established to model both situations. From those the equations of motion are derived separately and multiple simulations are performed with different initial conditions. For the freely rotating egg the numerically solved model accurately describes the expected motion. In the case of an egg, approximated as ellipsoid, constrained to move on a table where friction plays its role, the numerical solution describes rolling and/or slipping effects realistically. The full rising effect, however, does not follow out of the model because of limits in its complexity.
Despite the fact that the full rising effect does not follow from our model, this thesis develops an interpretation about the behaviour of the rolling and slipping ellipsoid with the derivation and numerical solution of the equations governing its motion.