Problem

The flywheel within a car engine is a form of gyroscope, and when rotating at high rpm,...

The flywheel within a car engine is a form of gyroscope, and when rotating at high rpm, it carries significant angular momentum. (A car flywheel is just a disk attached to the engine’s main rotating shaft.) In most cases, the engine of a race car is mounted such that the axis of rotation points in the forward direction and is in the forward direction. Because angular momentum (magnitude and direction) is conserved, what happens to the car as it rounds the end of an oval track in a counterclockwise direction (turning left)? About what axis will the car tend to twist? If instead the engine were mounted such that the axis of rotation was parallel to the axles of the car, along which axis would the car then tend to twist? Hint: Consider the gyroscope and the rotation of precession. In auto racing, the cars typically go around the oval track in a counterclockwise direction as viewed from above. Would race cars be engineered differently if races were conducted in a clockwise direction?

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