Q7.25 Two discs of moments of inertia and about their respective axes (normal to the
disc and passing through the centre), and rotating with angular speeds and
are brought into contact face to face with their axes of rotation coincident.
(a) What is the angular speed of the two-disc system?
Let the moment of inertia of disc I and disc II be I1 and I2 respectively.
Similarly, the angular speed of disc I and disc II be w1 and w2 respectively.
So the angular momentum can be written as :
and
Thus the total initial angular momentum is :
Now when the two discs are combined the angular momentum is :
Using conservation of angular momentum :
Thus angular velocity is :