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EBME 309 – Modeling of the skeletal sub-system

Dynamics of interconnected rigid bodies - Kinetics

Recall rigid body motion is divided into 3 types:

o Translation
o Pure rotation
o Combined translation and rotation
Let us start by looking at forces and their effects on the translational motion of a single body first.

Rectilinear translational motion of a single body

Recall that in translational motion, the kinematics of a

single point on a body is enough to define the kinematics Rectilinear
Translation
of the whole body. A simple point to consider in many
cases is the center of mass because the whole mass of the
O F2 CoM F3
body is concentrated at that point. Consider several
forces acting at the center of mass (CoM) of a body of F1 Fn
m
mass m in planar rectilinear translation (Fig.1.).
According to Newton's 2nd Law of Motion, the body Figure 1
CoM will have an acceleration that is proportional to the
resultant (sum) of all the forces acting on it. i.e.

F  maCoM (1)

Where F = resultant (algebraic sum) of all the forces and aCoM = the acceleration of the CoM.
Equation (1) is the kinetic equation of motion for the rectilinear translation of a single rigid body. This
situation can be represented by the equivalence diagram shown in Fig.2. Note that the acceleration

m
O F2 CoM F3 O
aCoM
Fn
F1
m
CoM
F
Figure 2

will points in the same direction as that of the resultant of all the forces. Newton’s Second law is one
of the laws that relates the motion (kinematics) of a biomechanical system to the forces acting on it
(kinetics).
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Curvilinear translational motion of a single body

Now, the forces and motion are no longer restricted to a y

straight line. Hence we can use a coordinate reference to F2
decompose the motion and forces into a pair of rectilinear F3
directions (Fig.3.). Again recall that for all forms of F1
translational motion (rectilinear or curvilinear), the
kinematics of one single point on the body is enough to define
Fn CoM F4
the kinematics of all other points on the body. Let that one
point again be the CoM. Write Newton’s Law of motion for
that single point as:
W
x
Figure 3
F  maCoM (2)

Where now, F = resultant (vector sum) of all forces acting on the body, aCoM = acceleration of the
body’s CoM and m = total mass of the body.

Using the rectangular coordinate axes x and y, the forces and acceleration can be decomposed into
their x and y components thus making it possible to write equation (2) as two scalar equations:

F x
 maCoMx
(3)
F y
 maCoMy

These are the kinetic equations of motion for the curvilinear translation of a single rigid body.

Before we talk about the kinetic laws for rotation, let us digress a little to examine a few
other interesting concepts in dynamics.

Forces and Moments of Forces

So far we assumed all forces act such that their lines of action pass through the CoM. But this is
unrealistic as forces could act at any point on the body and in any direction – example, most
musculotendon forces do not pass through the CoMs of the bones. Let us examine when forces are
acting at a point away from another point of interest to us – such as the CoM or any other point of
interest. Consider an arbitrary force vector F acting in a plane and whose point of application P is at
a distance defined by the vector r from an arbitrary point of interest O. The vector r also lies in the
same plane as F .
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In mechanics, the moment of F about O is defined by the

product of the force (F) and the perpendicular distance (d)
between the point O and the line of action of the force
(Fig.4.(a)). That is: O'
P  d

M = F.d (4) 
F r O

where d = OO’. But from the geometry of the triangle OO’P we

d
see that sin θ   d  r  sin θ . Hence we can write the
r (a)

moment equation as: Mo

O
M  ( r sin θ )  F (5)
 O
P r

F
But recalling from vector mechanics, equation (5) is exactly the
definition of the vector cross product of the two vector r and F . Plane containing F and r
 

But the cross product of two vectors is a vector, hence moment (b)
of a force about a point is a vector defined by the equation: Figure 4.

O
Mr x F (6)

Note that MO , being the cross product of two vector lying in a plane, is a vector which is
perpendicular to the plane containing the two vectors ( r and F in our case) – Fig.4(b).

Equation (4) is often used to find the magnitude of the moment

vector if we know the perpendicular distance d from the point of
interest O to the line of action of the force. If O is the center of a
joint in the human body (Fig.5) and F is the force exerted by a
muscle that crosses the joint, then d is sometimes called the moment
arm of the muscle about the joint center O; and O
M is the moment
generated by the muscle at the joint center O.

Force Couple: When two equal and opposite forces act at the same
point, they produce zero effect (equilibrium). But if they act at a
distance from each other, they produce what is called a couple of
forces. Couples of forces make a body to rotate and nothing else.
Figure 5.
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Forces in equilibrium: When two equal and

opposite forces act at a point, their effect
at that point cancels out – hence it is the r Fi
Couple = M i = r x Fi
d
same as applying a zero force at that -Fi
 Mi  Fi  d
Mi
point. This is called the equilibrium of
forces.

Fi

Couple of forces: Note that couples of forces


P r P'


are in many respects the same as moments

Fi

of forces because they have the same units. 

Plane containing Fi and r


The only difference between a moment and Figure 6.

a couple is that moments are always
reckoned with respect to an axis though a point whereas couples have no reference axis. They can be
reckoned with respect to any axis perpendicular to the plane of motion. Thus moments are bound
vectors while couples are free vectors.

This completes our digression. Let us now examine the relationship between forces acting
on a single rigid body and the rotational motion of that body.

Application of Newton’s Law to Bodies in Planar Rotational Motion

Notice that in defining Newton’s Law in equation (2) we assumed all forces are acting such that their
lines of action pass through the body’s CoM. This can only
result in translational motion of the body. But in reality, F2
the forces acting on a rigid body act such that their lines of F3
action do not pass through the CoM as shown in Fig.7. To
restore the effect of that offset from the CoM, we use ideas
from the definition of couples. Consider just one of these G
forces acting at a point P that is not passing through the F1
CoM G as shown in Fig.8: Fn

Figure 7.
1. First we create an equilibrium system at G with two
forces that are equal in magnitude to our original

force Fi (solid and dotted red vectors).

2. Then we take one of the red forces (dotted) that is opposite in direction to the original force

and use it along with the original force Fi to create a couple (black and dotted red vectors).
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3. Now we say the result is exactly the same as that of a couple acting on the body plus a force
(which has same magnitude and direction as the original force but that is now acting at G).
4. So now we have effectively
“moved” our force to G; but also
Fi Fi
added the effect of the movement
– which is to create the couple Mi.
P P Fi
5. The same should be done to all
r r
Fi the other forces which did not
G M i = r x Fi
pass through G.

G G
What this says is that forces acting
-Fi
on a body also cause moments (or
Figure 8. couples) to act on that body if
they do not pass through the CoM
or any other point of interest. A most important question to ask is: How do these moments affect the
motion of the body? The answer is they cause the body to have a rotational angular acceleration as
per Newton’s Law equation:

 G
M  GI  α (7)

In general, the moment of inertia G I is a 3 x 3 matrix; but for planar motion, it reduces to a scalar
defined as:

G
I  r
2
 dm (8)

From Equation (7) we see that moments are the rotational counterparts of forces – they affect or
effect rotation while forces affect or effect translation of bodies. Notice that equation (7) holds for any
other point, P say, located on the rigid body. That is for any arbitrary point P, equation (7) can be
written as:

 P
M  PI  α (9)

Equation (7) is the kinetic equation of motion for a single rigid body in pure rotational motion about
a fixed axis passing through the CoM G. Here  G
M is the resultant moment (about an axis through
G) of all the external forces acting on the rigid body, G
I is the moment of inertia of the body about
an axis through G, and α is the angular acceleration of the body. Notice that since both  G
M and α
are vectors pointing in a direction perpendicular to the plane of motion, equation (9) is essentially a
scalar equation (for planar motion only).

Application of Newton’s Law to Bodies in General Motion

Using the same technique of combining a single translation and a single rotation to define any general
planar motion of a single body, we can do the same here too. The equations for general motion then
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combine both equations (3) and (9) to get the total number of scalar kinetic equations for general
planar motion (combined translation and rotation) of a single rigid body as:

 F  ma
x CoMx

 F  ma
y CoMy
(10)
 M  Iα
G G

More about moment of inertia

The moment of inertia G

I is an important quantity in rigid body dynamics. Notice that in planar
motion, moment of inertia is always reckoned with respect to an axis passing through a point and
perpendicular to the plane of motion of the body. The moment of inertia is a measure of the

dm 1
dm 2 r1
r2

dm 3 r3

Figure 9.

distribution of the mass of the body about that axis - if the mass of the body is concentrated too close
to the axis, the inertia is low and vice versa.

Moment of inertia is available in tables in dynamics books (see a typical table shown elsewhere below
in these notes).

Top View
Question: Given the moment of inertia G
I about d

an axis through the CoM (it is available in tables

in dynamics books), how do we compute it about O
d
an axis through another arbitrary point O, i.e. I
O
G
O G
?
Consider the Figures here.
We can show that if d is the distance between the
Figure 10.
two axes, then

O
I  GI  md2 (11)

where m is the total mass of the body. This is called the parallel axis theorem.
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