Pendulum

A pendulum is a rigid body suspended from a fixed point where the rigid body swings, in a vertical plane, back and forth under the influence of gravity.

The cycle time of a pendulum can be computed as follows. If:

• the rigid body has negligible size; and
  
• the suspension device (e.g. a string or rod) has negligible weight; and
  
• the swing angle is negligible

then the cycle time to swing back and forth is:

• Let GravityFeetPerSec2 = 32.17
• CycleTimeSec = 2 * Pi * SQRT (LengthFt / GravityFeetPerSec2)

For a swing angle of 22 degrees the cycle time will be longer by about 1%. For 32 degrees the time will be longer by about 2%. Formulas for the cycle time that consider swing angle are available but are complex.

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