Rigid Body Motion

Angular momentum and Torque

Angular momentum and
torque are always defined
with respect to a fixed point,
the pivot. If г is the vector
from this point to the mass
point, then the angular
momentum is given by
L = r x p.

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 Angular momentum…
• L defines an axis through the pivot, the rotational
axis, which points perpendicularly to the plane
momentum spanned by г and p.
• The corresponding definition holds for the moment
of the force, which is defined by
  rF
and is also called torque.
 The time variation of the angular momentum is
equal to the torque:
 
L
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Angular momentum…

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 Angular momentum…
• If, in particular,  = r x F = 0 = dL/dt, it then
follows that L = constant. This is the conservation
law for the angular momentum.
• But the quantity г х F vanishes only then
• (except for the trivial cases г = 0, F = 0) if г and F
point along the same or the opposite direction.

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 Angular momentum…
• A force that acts exclusively parallel or
antiparallel to the position vector is called the
central force.
• This implies that central forces obey the
Conservation law of angular momentum
L = constant , because  = 0.

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 Moment of Inertia
• A rigid body rotates about a rotation axis z fixed
in space. By substituting the angular velocity
v  r
i i
for the velocity in the kinetic energy, one obtains …
next slid

Note: A vector triple product is a vector that is

coplanar with the vectors B and C; it is expressed
in terms of vectors B and C as:
A(B C)=B(A.C)-C(A.B)

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Moment of Inertia ….

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Moment of inertia…

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 Moment of Inertia…

Thus the velocity is given by

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Moment of Inertia…

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Moment of Inertia…

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Moment of Inertia…

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 Moment of Inertia…
• Equations relating the angular momentum L
and angular velocity  can be put using a
single operator I acting on  as:
L=I
Where   (x y z )

 Lx 
 
L   Ly  I
 
 Lz 
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 Rotation about a Fixed Axis
• A rigid body has 6 degrees of freedom, 3 of
translation and 3 of rotation.
• The most general motion of a rigid body can be
separated into the translation of a body point and
the rotation about an axis through this
• The 3 translational degrees of freedom give the
coordinates of the particular body point, 2 of the
rotational degrees of freedom determine the
orientation of the rotation axis, and the third one
fixes the rotation angle about this axis.
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 Rotation about …
• If a point of the rigid body is kept fixed, then any
displacement corresponds to a rotation of the body
about an axis through this fixed point (Euler's
theorem).
• There exists an axis (through the fixed point) such
that the result of several consecutive rotations can be
replaced by a single rotation about this axis.
• For an extended body the vanishing of the sum of all
acting forces is no longer sufficient as an equilibrium
condition.
• Two oppositely oriented equal forces -F and F that act
at two points of a body separated by the distance
vector r are called a couple. A couple causes,
independent of the reference point, the torque  =IxF.
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Rotation about …

Fig.1.A couple causes a torque.

Figure 2. The forces acting on a

rigid body are equivalent to a
total force and a couple.
The resultant force is F1

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Rotation about …

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 Rotation about …
For the calculation of the equilibrium condition, the origin of
the vectors ri (reference point of the moments) is arbitrary.
Actually, for the point O it follows that (see Figure 2)

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 General MoMent equation
• The moment equation (the symbols  , D , L , M
are used for moment force=torque or simply
moment ) is applicable to systems of particles and
rigid bodies in three and two dimensions.
• For a system of particles connected rigidly or a
rigid body in arbitrary motion,(no point is fixed)
using Newton’s second law leads to the general
moment equation given by:
• (1)

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 MoMent equation…

For a rigid body, the angular momentum is related

to mass moments of inertia and the angular
velocity, Lp  I p (2)
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 MoMent equation…
In many engineering applications, the motion of
rigid bodies is primarily in two dimensions.
 A rigid body is in plane motion if it translates in two
dimensions (plane) and rotates only about an axis
that is perpendicular to the plane.
For a rigid body in plane motion, the mass moment
of inertia is a scalar quantity and the time rate of
change of the angular momentum reduces to

L  I   I  (3)
p p 22
 MoMent equation…
• where Ip is the mass moment of inertia of the
body about an axis through point P and α is the
angular acceleration. Hence the moment
equation becomes:

(4)

If the rigid body rotates about a fixed axis through point O,

Equation (4) can be simplified as
• (5)
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 MoMent equation…
• With is the mass moment
of inertia of the body about point O.
• If the axis of rotation is not fixed, the dynamics
model of the rigid body can be derived using
Equation (1) or
• (6)

Both Equations (1) and (6) are applicable regardless of

whether the axis of rotation is fixed or not.
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Example 1: A Single-Degree-of-Freedom
Rotational Mass–Spring–Damper System
Consider a simple disk–shaft system shown in
Figure 1a, in which the disk rotates about a fixed
axis through point O. A single-degree-of-freedom
torsional mass–spring–damper system in Figure1b
can be used to approximate the dynamic behavior
of the disk–shaft system. I O is the mass moment
of inertia of the disk about point O, K represents
the elasticity of the shaft, and B represents
torsional viscous damping. Derive the differential
equation of motion.
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 Example 1… 26

Fig.1.A rotational mass–spring–damper system:

(a) physical system, (b) mass–spring–damper
model, and (c) free-body diagram.
 Example 1…

Thus we have

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 Example 2: A Two-Degree-of-Freedom
Rotational Mass–Spring System
• Consider the disk–shaft system shown in Figure
2a. The mass moments of inertia of disks are I1
and I2 , respectively. The shafts can be modeled
as massless torsional springs. The torsional mass-
spring model is shown in Figure 2b.
Fig.2

A disk–shaft system: (a) physical system and (b) mass–spring model.

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 Example2…
• Solution
• a. Choose the angular displacements θ 1 and θ 2
as the generalized coordinates.
• Assume that θ 1 > θ 2 > 0.
• The free-body diagrams are shown in Figure 2c.
Applying Equation (5) about the fixed points O 1
and O 2 , respectively, gives

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Example 2…

Free-body diagrams for the

disk–shaft system in Figure 2

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 Example2…
To get the transfer function of the model proceed as follows

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