Screw axis

A screw axis (helical axis or twist axis) is a line that is simultaneously the axis of rotation and the line along which translation of a body occurs. Chasles' theorem shows that each Euclidean displacement in three-dimensional space has a screw axis, and the displacement can be decomposed into a rotation about and a slide along this screw axis.

Plücker coordinates are used to locate a screw axis in space, and consist of a pair of three-dimensional vectors. The first vector identifies the direction of the axis, and the second locates its position. The special case when the first vector is zero is interpreted as a pure translation in the direction of the second vector. A screw axis is associated with each pair of vectors in the algebra of screws, also known as screw theory.

The spatial movement of a body can be represented by a continuous set of displacements. Because each of these displacements has a screw axis, the movement has an associated ruled surface known as a screw surface. This surface is not the same as the axode, which is traced by the instantaneous screw axes of the movement of a body. The instantaneous screw axis, or 'instantaneous helical axis' (IHA), is the axis of the helicoidal field generated by the velocities of every point in a moving body.