The preliminary design of a unit for automatically reducing the speed of a freely rotati...

The preliminary design of a unit for automatically reducing the speed of a freely rotating assembly is shown. Initially the unit is rotating freely about a vertical axis through O at a speed of 600 rev /min with the arms secured in the positions shown by AB. When the arms are released, they swing outward and become latched in the dashed positions shown. The disk has a mass of 30 kg with a radius of gyration of 90 mm about O. Each arm has a length of 160 mm and a mass of 0.84 kg and may be treated as a uniform slender rod. Determine the new speed N of rotation and calculate the loss |ΔE| of energy of the system. Would the results be affected by either the direction of rotation or the sequence of release of the rods?