ADVANCED KINEMATICS OF THE PLANE MOTION 219

With the substitution

where d, has the dimension of a length, Eq. (c) becomes

Os->S — 1_

(Pa->P) + (P->S) cos

.
" 1
(Os-^pkp^S) *
and
(o^tp + pis) cos =
i (10-1)

Usually, the only directly available, or easily obtainable, details of the

motion of a plane are the position of the velocity pole and the angular
velocity. The direction of the pole normal, specified by the angle —6,

Fig. 10-2

from a given ray, and the length di are not known. The objective of the
following investigation is the determination of these two quantities, to
permit the general evaluation of Eq. (10-1).
The Inflection Circle. Equation (10-1) shows that points such as Si,
S2, etc., on a given ray describe paths which differ in shape in the vicinity
of the position under observation. It is therefore
reasonable to assume
that there exists on the ray a point /, which passes,
at the' given instant,
through an inflection of its path. For such a point, the radius of curva
ture of the path and the distance 0j, — ► P are both infinite. Equation
(10-1), applied to /„ reduces, therefore, to

P□ —> Ir,
cos 6, = -r
a,
and P-+I. = di cos 6, (10-2)