Model reduction of the tippedisk: a path to the full analysis

The tippedisk is a mechanical-mathematical archetype for friction-induced instability phenomena that exhibits an interesting inversion phenomenon when spun rapidly. The inversion phenomenon of the tippedisk can be modeled by a rigid eccentric disk in permanent contact with a flat support, and the dynamics of the system can therefore be formulated as a set of ordinary differential equations. The qualitative behavior of the nonlinear system can be analyzed, leading to slow–fast dynamics. Since even a freely rotating rigid body with six degrees of freedom already leads to highly nonlinear system equations, a general analysis for the full system equations is not feasible. In a first step the full system equations are linearized around the inverted spinning solution with the aim to obtain a local stability analysis. However, it turns out that the linear dynamics of the full system cannot properly describe the qualitative behavior of the tippedisk. Therefore, we simplify the equations of motion of the tippedisk in such a way that the qualitative dynamics are preserved in order to obtain a reduced model that will serve as the basis for a following nonlinear stability analysis. The reduced equations are presented here in full detail and are compared numerically with the full model. Furthermore, using the reduced equations we give approximate closed form results for the critical spinning speed of the tippedisk.