Chapter 17 Lecture Notes Part I MAE 208: Engineering Dynamics

Planar Kinetics of a Rigid Body: Force and Acceleration

Figure 1. Rigid body undergoing translation and rotation

Recall that for a rotating and translating body, the velocity of any point B can be related to the velocity
of a point A, using:
(1)

The acceleration is:

(2)

For particles, we had one vector equation of motion relating linear acceleration to the net forces:

or depending on the coordinate system used, up to three scalar equations:

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Chapter 17 Part I

Suppose we have a rigid body undergoing translation and rotation, Figure 2.

Figure 2. Rigid body undergoing translation and rotation

Similar to when we had a system of particles, the translational equation of motion relates the net force
on the body to the acceleration of the bodys center of mass:

For PLANAR motion, we have two scalar equations (that depend on the coordinate system):

In order to determine the rotational equation of motion, consider a differential element with mass mi
and acceleration a i .

Figure 3. Effect of forces on a differential element in the body

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Chapter 17 Part I

Since the internal forces will balance out, lets just consider the effect of the external forces. The
moment of the forces about the point P is:

If the body has angular velocity and angular acceleration , the acceleration of the particle can be
represented as ((2)):

Therefore we have:

Using the fact that

and considering only planar rotations:

where
Integrating over the entire body ( mi dm ), we get:
(3)
The first two integrals relate the bodys center of mass with respect to point P :

Note: Hibbeler uses x for xG / P .

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Chapter 17 Part I

The third integral is the mass moment of inertia about point P :

Note: We will investigate this quantity later. Similar to how mass is a measure of the resistant to linear
acceleration, the moment of inertia is a resistance to angular acceleration.
Finally, (3) becomes:
(4)
The easiest way to simplify this would be to choose a point that coincides with the center of mass
(

):
(5)

Remember the Parallel axis theorem:

(6)
We can rewrite (4) using (6) in order to have everything in terms of the translational and rotational
acceleration of the bodys center of mass. Substituting (6) into (4) gives us:
(7)

Using (2), we have:

Relating i and j components gives:

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Chapter 17 Part I

A little rearranging (and an eye on (7)) gives:

Substituting into (7) gives:

In summary, when summing moments about a point other than the center of mass, you have to
remember to include the effects of the kinetic moments of mxG / P aG , y and myG / P aG , x .
In general: For rigid body planar motion, we have:

-or-

EXAMPLE

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Chapter 17 Part I

Free Body diagram:

Equations of motion:

Relate the acceleration of the center of mass to the acceleration of point B:

The acceleration of point B will be tangential to the circle created by the cord, so we have:

Three equations, three unknowns:

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Chapter 17 Part I

All the equations are linear:

Special Case: Rectilinear translation only

Often easiest to use Cartesian coordinate system:

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Special Case: Curvilinear translation only

Often easiest to use Normal-Tangential coordinate system:

Special Case: Rotation about a fixed axis only

Figure 4. Rigid body undergoing rotation only

If a body rotates about an axis located at point O , the equations of motion are:

However, this last equation can be replaced using the parallel axis theorem:

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Moment of Inertia (Mass Moment of Inertia):

The moment of inertia is the integral of the second moment of the differential masses dm about an
axis:
(8)
Note that the differential mass can be represented by the density :

where dV is the differential volume. Therefore (8) can also be represented by:
(9)
If the density is constant:

EXAMPLE: Cylinder

Figure 5. Mass moment of inertia of a cylinder

Note that there are multiple ways to do this.

The differential mass is:

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Chapter 17 Part I

The differential volume element is:

Figure 6. Differential volume element in polar coordinates

Therefore, if we integrate over the volume, we have:

The total volume of a cylinder is:

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Chapter 17 Part I

Note that the book uses a slightly different method. The volume of a thin-walled cylinder with thickness
dr is:

Radius of Gyration: If the radius of gyration k about a specified axis is given, know how this relates to
the mass moment of inertia:

EXAMPLE:

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Take thin slices of the volume. The volume of a cylinder with different thickness dx :

The mass is:

The moment of inertia of a thin slices is:

Therefore the moment of inertia is:

The answer needs to be in terms of the total mass:

Therefore:

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Chapter 17 Part I