Floor-impulse dependence of a rolling-cylinder collision

ID: floor-impulse-dependence-of-a-rolling-cylinder-collision

A smooth central collision leaves a cylinder's angular velocity unchanged if the floor supplies negligible tangential impulse. Imposing rolling without slipping during the impact instead requires a floor impulse and changes the cylinder's effective translational mass to . Consequently a pre-impact rolling condition alone does not determine the outgoing velocities: the impulsive contact law must also be specified. For a uniform solid cylinder striking a stationary point mass in an elastic collision, the target acquires with negligible floor impulse, and with an enforced rolling constraint, where is the incoming centre speed.

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