If the object is also rotating around an axis going through its center of mass (CM in the figure), then it also has rotational energy:
(2)
Here
is the moment of inertia of the cylinder around an axis going through the center of mass, and is called the angular velocity.
Click here to learn more about the moment of inertia and about angular velocity.
We take a hollow cylinder with outer radius , inner radius , length and mass and we place this cylinder on top of an inclined plane with inclination angle and height . If we release the cylinder it shall have no initial velocity, because all of its energy is still in potential energy:
(3)
where is the acceleration of gravity (on earth about
). When the cylinder starts rolling, it will loose potential energy and gain kinetic and rotational energy. At the end of the inclined plane all potential energy will have been transfered into kinetic and rotational energy. In this process there is no loss or gain of energy (if we neglect friction), so we can write down:
(4)
To solve these equations we need a relationship between and . If the cylinder may not slip during its rolling then: