The Rotation Tensor

Two Dimensional Case

Pure, two dimensional rotation can be described by the single angle, , as shown.

B B

θ
x
P A

Clearly, for pure rotation, all lines eminating from a generic point P remain the
same length and simply rotate about P . Therefore,
@u
@x
= 0:0
@v
@y
= 0:0
where u = the displacement in the positive x direction and v = the displacement
in the positive y direction. This gives the displacement gradient matrix the form:
2 3
66 0:0 @y
@u
77
4 @v 0:0 5
@x

If the rotation is small, then the relative displacement of any point with respect
to P A is appoximately perpendicular to the line joining the point to P . That is
d0
AA = @v
dx  dx
@x
d0
BB = @u
dy  dy
@y
 Hence:
@v
@x
 

@u
@y
 

With this approximation, the displacement gradient matrix becomes:

" #
0:0 
+ 0:0
From this we see that any small rigid body rotation gives rise to a skew symmetric
displacement gradient in the vicinity of a point. Likewise, any skew symmetric
displacement gradient is a result of a pure rotation. Finally, any skew symmetric
component of a displacement gradient can be thought of as the average rota-
tion about the point P . Hence, if the displacement gradient is factored into a
symmetric component and a skew symmetric component as follows:
2     3
6
66 2 @x + @x 77
2 @y + @x
1 @u @u 1 @u @v
2 3 77
75 = 666
@u @u
64 @x @y 7
@v @v 66     777
@x @y 64 12 @v + @u 1 @v
2 @y
+ @v 75
@x @y @y

2   3
66 0 1 @u @v 77
66 2 @y @x 77
+ 666  
77
77
66 1 @v
4 2 @x
@u
@y
0 75

the symmetric component is the strain tensor, and the skew symmetric component
is the rotation matrix.
Three Dimensional Case
The two dimensional case is easily extended to three dimensions by considering
the following gure:

A
Ω

r
A

where
is the rotation vector and ~r is the relative position vector of point A with
respect to an generic point P . The displacement of A to A due to the rotation
0

is:
d = ~u =

AA 0 ~ X~r

which, when expanded, gives the following matrix relationship:

8 9 2 38 9
>
>
>
>
ux >
>
>
> 6
0
+
7 >
z >
>
>
r
y x
>
>
>
>
>
< >
= 66 7< > >
=
uy = 66 +
0
77 r
>
>
> >
>
>
z
75 >
>
x y
>
>
>
>
: uz
>
>
;
4

y +
0 >
x
>
>
:r z
>
>
>
;

Again, we see that pure rotation results in a skew symmetric matrix, and that any
skew symmetric matrix represents a pure rotation matrix. Note, of course, that
the rotations are again assumed small. The displacement matrix in three dimen-
sion can, therefore, be factored into a symmetric component representing strain
and a skew symmetric component representing rotations. In indicial notation, we
have:
@u i
= 1  @u + @u  + 1  @u @u  =  + !
i j i j
@xj 2 @x @x j i 2 @x @x j i
ij ij