Bepalen van het massatraagheidsmoment met behulp van een bifilar pendulum: Determining the moments of inertia using a bifilar pendulum

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the use of a bifilar pendulum for determining the moments of inertia of the TU Delft solar boat and to quantitatively predict the estimates. In the first part, several methods are discussed which can be applied in deriving the equations of motion of the pendulum. A new method, Kane's method, will be introduced. In the second part, this method will be used to derive the actual equations of motion. These equations are linearized around of the the pendulum's stationary positions to obtain expressions which link the moment of inertia about an axis to the period of oscillation of the pendulum about that axis. These equations are subsequently applied to the solar boat to derive estimates for the moments of inertia about the principle axis of the boat. The results of this thesis considers three different configurations of the bifilar pendulum with the solar boat suspended. One of these configurations results in the most accurate estimates for the moments of inertia, however, these have not been quantitatively predicted. The author suggests a modification in the definition of the bifilar pendulum such that this might be possible.