The stability of a spinning projectile which contains a cylindrical mass fitted loosely into a cylindrical cavity but constrained to spin with the projectile is examined. An unstable coning motion is obtained in which spin decay and cone angle growth are proportional to the coefficient of friction between the mass and the cavity wall and to the maximum angle of cant between the mass and the projectile. Similar behavior is observed experimentally.
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William G. Soper (1978) studied this question.
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