ROTATION OF RIGID BODIES

CHAPTER 6
A rigid body is an idealized model of a body which has a
perfectly definite and unchanging shape and size. It is a body
where all the particles maintain their relative position as it
rotates. When a body rotates about a fixed axis, its motion can
be described by the quantities angular position, angular
displacement, angular velocity and angular acceleration.
I. ANGULAR POSITION AND DISPLACEMENT

 Angular Position - If we pick a point on the rotating object and draw a line from this point to
the origin it will make an angle with the x-axis. This angle is called the angular position.
 Angular Displacement - The angular displacement is defined as the change in angular
position, during a time interval . In symbols,

 The angular position and angular displacement will most commonly be expressed in
radians (rad). To covert between radians, revolutions, and degrees use the conversion:

 One rad is the angle subtended at the center of a circle by an arc with a length equal to
the radius of the circle. The value of (in radians) is equal to arc length divided by the
radius of the circle. In symbols,
II. ANGULAR VELOCITY AND ACCELERATION

 The average angular velocity of a body is the ratio of the angular displacement to the time
interval.

 The instantaneous angular velocity on the other hand is defined as the limit of as
approaches zero. That is, it is the derivative of with respect to .

 When we refer simply to angular velocity we mean the instantaneous angular velocity, not
the average angular velocity. At any instant, every part of the rotating body has the same
angular velocity. This quantity can be positive or negative, depending on the direction in
which the rigid body is rotating.
 When the angular velocity of a rigid body changes, it has an angular acceleration.
II. ANGULAR VELOCITY AND ACCELERATION

 If and are the instantaneous angular velocities at and , the average angular acceleration
is defined as

 The instantaneous angular acceleration is the limit of as approaches zero. That is, it is
the derivative of with respect to .
III. ROTATION WITH CONSTANT ANGULAR ACCELERATION

 Constant angular acceleration refers to the constant time rate of change of angular
velocity. This type of motion has the following equations:
IV. RELATING LINEAR AND ANGULAR KINEMATICS

 Consider a point P on a rotating object that is a distance r away from the axis of rotation.
As the object turns through an angle , the point covers a distance given by

 If this expression is differentiated with respect to time, the above equation becomes:

 But is the linear speed and is the angular speed. Hence,

IV. RELATING LINEAR AND ANGULAR KINEMATICS

 Differentiating once again gives a relationship between the tangential acceleration of the
point and the angular acceleration of the rotating body:

 Finally, recall that any object that is undergoing circular motion experiences an inwardly
directed radial acceleration given by:

 Substituting with yields

ROTATIONAL MOTION
ROTATIONAL MOTION
V. ENERGY IN ROTATIONAL MOTION

 A rotating rigid body consists of mass in motion so it has kinetic energy.

 For a system of particles of masses at distances from an axis passing through a point, the
total rotational kinetic energy of is the sum of the kinetic energies of all its particles:
V. ENERGY IN ROTATIONAL MOTION

 Moment of inertia is the name given to rotational inertia, the rotational analog of mass for
linear motion. It appears in the relationships for the dynamics of rotational motion. The
moment of inertia must be specified with respect to a chosen axis of rotation. For a
point mass the moment of inertia is just the mass times the square of perpendicular
distance to the rotation axis,
V. ENERGY IN ROTATIONAL MOTION

 The diagram below shows the moment of inertia for different solid geometries.
V. ENERGY IN ROTATIONAL MOTION

 That point mass relationship becomes the basis for all other moments of inertia since any
object can be built up from a collection of point masses. Thus, in terms of moment of
inertia, the rotational kinetic energy of a rigid body is

 The moment of inertia contribution by an infinitesimal mass element dm is

 Note that the differential element of moment of inertia must always be defined with
respect to a specific rotation axis. The sum over all these mass elements is called
an integral over the mass.
V. ENERGY IN ROTATIONAL MOTION

 To evaluate the integral, we have to represent and in terms of the same integration
variable. When the object is effectively one-dimensional, such as the slender rods (a) and
(b) in prior page, we can use a coordinate x along the length and relate to an increment .
For a three-dimensional object it is usually easiest to express in terms of an element of
volume and the density of the body. Density is mass per unit volume

 So
V. ENERGY IN ROTATIONAL MOTION

 This expression tells us that a body’s moment of inertia depends on how its density varies
within its volume. If the body is uniform in density, then we may take ρ outside the integral

 To use this equation, we have to express the volume element in terms of the differentials
of the integration variables, such as

 The element must always be chosen so that all points within it are at very nearly the same
distance from the axis of rotation. The limits on the integral are determined by the shape
and dimensions of the body. For regularly shaped bodies, this integration is often easy to
do.
VI. PARALLEL- AXIS THEOREM

 The moment of inertia of any object about an axis through its center of mass is the
minimum moment of inertia for an axis in that direction in space. The moment of inertia
about any axis parallel to that axis through the center of mass is given by

 The expression added to the center of mass moment of inertia will be recognized as the
moment of inertia of a point mass - the moment of inertia about a parallel axis is the
center of mass moment plus the moment of inertia of the entire object treated as a point
mass at the center of mass.
SOLVED PROBLEMS
EXAMPLE 1

A flywheel requires 4.00s to rotate through 162 rad. Its angular velocity at the end of this
time is 108rad/s. Find

a) the angular velocity at the beginning of the 4.00s interval;

b) the constant angular acceleration.
EXAMPLE 1

The constant angular acceleration

The average angular velocity is is

 and so the initial angular velocity is 𝑟𝑎𝑑 𝑟𝑎𝑑

108 −(−27 )
∆𝜔 𝑠 𝑠 2
𝛼= = =33.80𝑟𝑎𝑑/𝑠
∆𝑡 4𝑠
EXAMPLE 2

Problem Solution
When drilling a 12.7-mm diameter hole in
wood, plastic, or aluminum, a shop manual
recommends a drill speed of 1250rev/min.
For a 12.7mm diameter turning at a constant b)
1250rev/min, find:
a) the maximum linear speed of any part of
the bit and
b) the maximum radial acceleration of any
part of the bit.
EXAMPLE 3

A thin uniform rod 50.0cm long and with mass 0.320kg is bent at its center into a V shape,
with a 70.00 angle at its vertex.

Find the moment of inertia of this V-shaped object about an axis perpendicular to the plane of
the V at its vertex. Treat the V like two thin 0.160-kg bars, each 25 cm long.

1 2 1
‫= ܫ‬2 ݉ ‫= ܮ‬2 0.160݇݃ 0.250݉ 2
= 6.67‫ ݔ‬10−3 ݇݃ .݉2
3 3
EXAMPLE 4

Calculate the moment of inertia of a uniform rigid rod of length L and mass M about an axis
perpendicular to the rod (y-axis) and passing through its center of mass.