Computer Program Detail Page written by Wolfgang Christian and
Jose José Goncalves The Atwood Machine in a Fluid model shows
two masses connected by strings and pulleys immersed in a water
tank. Each mass is acted on by gravitational, buoyant, and drag
forces. Users can change density of the left and right mass
using input fields and can drag either mass to change the
initial conditions. Note that the floor of the tank produces a
normal force that limits the motion. If the water is removed the
tank, the model behaves like a traditional Atwood machine.
Adding water changes the dynamics in many ways. Because the
buoyant force varies as the mass is submerged, the system
oscillates anharmonically about an equilibrium point that
depends on the mass densities. The Atwood Machine in Fluid model
was created using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool.
It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.
Double clicking the ejs_mech_fluid_AtwoodMachineInFluid.jar file
will run the program if Java is in