The motion and tension of an unwinding thread. I

Abstract

The fluctuating tensions in a perfectly flexible string unwinding from a stationary package are considered, and the dependence of unwinding tensions on air resistance, unwinding speed, angle of winding on the package, number of ‘balloons’, angle of conical packages, etc., is examined. Unwinding from rotating packages and from the interior of hollow packages are also briefly considered. Predicted and experimental values of the tensions are compared. The stability of different modes of unwinding will be investigated in part II.