Physics in a bicycle for EE

Hello, i'm deciding on my question for my extended essay.
I was thinking of some questions, and 'why is a bicycle more stable when it is moving then it is stationary' seemed to interest me.
But i'm not sure what kind of physics is involved in this, and also i'm not sure if this is good for a lab experiment. Is the physics sufficient enough for an extended essay?
Please tell me what you think about it,
Thanks in advance!

Reply 1

bongadadu

This experiment would involve mostly:

Center of gravity
Torque

The question you are doing seems a bit short for a whole extended essay, and so will cost you a lot more time due to the lack of things you can say about "why a bicycle is more stable than when it is stationary".

Also it will be a bit hard to actually obtain and perform calculations with data since a bicycle is big and every ride on it is different from each other...

However if you still wish to do such an experiment, its better to do it on "How Bicycles Work", this way you can examine different aspects such as torque, center of gravity, effects of brakes, effect of suspension...and so on. This will easily allow you with more if not just enough to talk about, but let me still point out, this is a very difficult experiment; all the variables are going to be messed up. This is something thats better done when computer simulated.

For other interesting EE topics for Physics have a look at this website and of course ask your teacher.

http://www.saburchill.com/physics/essay.html

Reply 2

Visionjv

Hey, I am taking my exams now May 2007 and also did my EE on bicycle physics. I have to disagree with bongadadu in so far as selecting one particular aspect of the bicycle will give you more than enough to discuss. I investigated the maximum deceleration attainable on a Freeride bicycle, considering skidding (coefficients of static friction) and pitchover dependent on velocity / deceleration and ground gradient.

It turned out to be an interesting EE, with many many uncertainties which allowed me to discuss quite a lot in my conclusion. The results were slightly inconclusive though due to these uncertainties, though there was definitely a noticeable trend to discuss, having however values that did not correspond to the hypothesized mathematical models.

If your going to do it on this topic I would reccomend focusing on one area and really planning it carefully. In the end my biggest problem was word count, so really do stay clear from broad topics. If you need any help message me.

Good luck.

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