Question

A wheel of a bicycle has more than one type of motion. Explain

Answer 1

In order to solve this question we need to understand rolling motion.Rolling motion is a type of motion which combines both rotation and translation of the body with respect to the surface on which this motion is considered. Pure rolling is defined as rolling without translation; this happens only when the rotating frame of reference is at rest or at all points of contact net force is zero. Also rolling without slipping means the point of contact has zero velocity and it translates without being dragged.

Complete answer:
A bicycle is a purely mechanical device made of components like wheels, paddles etc.A wheel is of circular shape and it is connected to a bicycle with the help of chain and paddles.Now to understand motion of wheel of a bicycle we would consider two situations.

First is a bicycle standing somewhere on its double stand means it cannot move further from this place. Now if we move the paddles then the wheel rotates due to attached chains to it, so this motion of a wheel is known as rotatory motion because the wheel only rotates in this situation.

Second is when we paddle the bicycle on the road then the wheel along with rotation moves forward on the road and that’s why the forward bicycle moves. So along with rotation wheels perform translation motion too, so this combination of rotation and translation is known as rolling motion of wheel.

Note: It should be remembered that contact point of wheel may or may not be at rest and it depends on situation like if you are racer then you want to drag the wheels on road so in this circumstance contact point is not at rest but suppose you are riding a bicycle in a mud then wheels slips and it keeps rotating with less translation now in this circumstance contact point is at rest.