I said that with such unusual definition of
your formula of kinetic energy
is correct.
But such definition is source of potential mistakes and let me use everywhere below
and
for angular speed of ring clockwise
in inertial reference frame. You can at any moment replace it back to your definitions via
Friction
for first and last ring compensated by horizontal external forces
, that in sum consume power
. For another intermediate rings it not competsated and each of them lose angular speed due sum of 2 friction forces.
,
. With fixed
it will continues lineary till
. From this moment there different behaviour for even and odd number of rings, but till this moment no difference and lets stop calculation at this moment
Heating power at each contact between ring
and ring
is
. Between intermediate rings (ie in
contact points) it
, and in 2 rest points it
and in sum
. And total heating energy during
is
So during
on the one hand external 2 forces
did work
, intermediate rings lose
of kinetic energy, on the other hand we got
of heating energy. Balance is zero
As you can see,
finally do not affect anything. It affect for example work of upper external
but affect work of lower external
in opposite direction and as result do not affect summary external work. Only with strange definition of
it can appear in final result