How does angle of incline affect an object rolling down an incline plane?
for a rolling object, the velocity of point of contact is nearly motionless with respect to the plane (that is why the object rolls instead of slips). There are two forces on the object, the force of gravity and the force of friction (at the point of contact). Since center of mass motion is parallel to the plane, we take the component of gravity in that direction minus the force of friction to get the net force. The maximum that the friction force can be is the coefficient of static friction times the normal force (which is the other component of the gravitational force – that perpendicular to the plane), but the force of friction can be less than that. Now to really solve this problem, one has also to analyze the rolling motion, which involves angular momentum and torques, and couple this to the linear motion of the center of mass. That is too complicated to explain here (sorry). But it should be obvious that a steeper incline will result in faster acceleration of the object. Look at
