STABILITY OF A ROTATING BALL

Influence of form errors of a chamber filled with a liquid on the movement and stability of a ball, rotating in the chamber, is studied. Two cases of the influence of the chamber form errors on the forces, acting on the ball, are defined. The first case describes the situation when limitations on the rotor shift are not imposed and disturbances of the chamber form are set by spherical harmonics not above the first order. In the second case disturbance of a chamber form is arbitrary and the rotor is supposed small. A rising here diflective moment tends to direct the angular speed vector along the small semiaxis of the ellipsoid, i.e., a stable position of the rotor appears.