Centrifugal forces unity - confusing behaviour
Hey,
I noticed a strange physical behaviour of a high G centrifuge like setup. I attached a Unity file with two highly simplified scenes. The center of gravity oft he respective body (which could be the cell in a real setup) is at the position of the red cube. When the setup rotates at a constant velocity the cell should rotate 180° from its initial position due to gravitational forces in its stable equilibrium position (ok, if its in the exact unstable equilibrium position it shouldn’t, but that’s not the point here). The expected behaviour occurs when the angle between the connecting rod and the rotational axis is 90° as seen in the first scene. So far so good. But when I changed the angle to any other value (by changing the minimum value of the hinge joint), let's say 80° as in the second scene, the cell rotates less and seems to be in an equilibrium at around 90° from its initial position instead of 180°link text. To my understanding there are only two forces applying on the cell when the setup is rotating at a constant velocity and the angle between the rod and the rotational speed remains constant: The gravitational force pointing downwards and the the centrifugal force is pointing outwards perpendicular to the rotational axis going through the centre of gravity of the cell (There is nothing like air drag, right?) . Due to direction of the centrifugal force it should have little to none influence on the torque turning the cell. But apparently it has. Does anyone have an explanation for this behaviour and maybe a solution how to make the cell turn into its stable equilibrium position (for the case with 80°) without interfering to much with the physics engine?