More about clothes dryers!

In a discussion question in the previous section, we made the assumption that the clothes remain against the inside of the drum as they go over the top. In light of the previous example, is this a correct assumption?

No. We know that there must be some minimum speed at which the motor can run that will result in the clothes just barely staying against the inside of the drum as they go over the top. If the clothes dryer ran at just this minimum speed, then there would be no normal force on the clothes at the top: they would be on the verge of losing contact. The only force acting on them at the top would be the force of gravity, which would give them an acceleration of g = 9.8 m/s². The actual dryer must be running slower than this minimum speed, because it produces an acceleration of only 8.8 m/s². My theory is that this is done intentionally, to make the clothes mix and tumble.