Analysis of translational and rotational motion of a rigid body in centrifugal model tests

Recent advances in centrifuge technology have expanded the utilisation of centrifugal model tests to engineering problems relevant to high translational and rotational velocities, such as granular flows and meteorite cratering. This paper formulates the governing equations for rigid body motion with six degrees of freedom in centrifugal hypergravity field and introduces the corresponding centrifugal hypergravitational potential function. Parametric studies and numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the influences of inertial forces and torques on object motion without constraints and along a slope. The analyses reveal that rotating objects in centrifugal hypergravity field experience additional non-uniform centrifugal and Coriolis torques. Conducting centrifuge model tests with a smaller scaling factor, a longer centrifuge arm, and objects possessing higher initial translational and rotational velocities exhibit smaller motion discrepancies. In the scenarios analysed, a centrifuge arm with λh = 1/8 is sufficient to achieve satisfactory accuracy.