ROTATIONAL EQUILIBRIUM AND ROTATIONAL DYNAMICS

-MOMENT OF INERTIA

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,

I = mr2. 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.

Moment of Inertia Examples

Moment of inertia is defined with respect to a specific rotation axis. The moment of inertia of a

point mass with respect to an axis is defined as the product of the mass times the distance from

the axis squared. The moment of inertia of any extended object is built up from that basic

definition. The general form of the moment of inertia involves an integral.

Moment of Inertia, General Form

Since the moment of inertia of an ordinary object involves a continuous distribution of mass at a

continually varying distance from any rotation axis, the calculation of moments of inertia

generally involves calculus, the discipline of mathematics which can handle such continuous

variables. Since the moment of inertia of a point mass is defined by

then the moment of inertia contribution by an infinitesmal mass element dm has the same form.

This kind of mass element is called a differential element of mass and its moment of inertia is

given by

Note that the differential element of moment of inertia dI 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.

Usually, the mass element dm will be expressed in terms of the geometry of the object, so that

the integration can be carried out over the object as a whole (for example, over a long uniform

rod).
Having called this a general form, it is probably appropriate to point out that it is a general form

only for axes which may be called "principal axes", a term which includes all axes of symmetry

of objects. The concept of moment of inertia for general objects about arbitrary axes is a much

more complicated subject. The moment of inertia in such cases takes the form of a mathematical

tensor quantity which requires nine components to completely define it

Here is an example of a problem:

Find the moment of inertia about the geometric center of the given structure made up of one thin

rod connecting two similar solid spheres as shown in Figure.

Solution

The structure is made up of three objects; one thin rod and two solid spheres.The mass of the rod,

M = 3 kg and the total length of the rod, ℓ = 80 cm = 0.8 m

The mass of the sphere, M = 5 kg and the

radius of the sphere, R = 10 cm = 0.1 m

The moment of inertia of the sphere about geometric center of the structure is,I sph = I C + Md2

Where, d = 40 cm + 10 cm = 50 cm = 0.5 m

As there are one rod and two similar solid spheres we can write the total moment of inertia (I) of

the given geometric structure as, I = Irod + (2 × Isph )

I. Work Your Mind. Answer the following questions below:

1.Moment Two balls connected by a rod, as shown in the figure below (Ignore rod’s mass).

Mass of ball X is 700 grams and the mass of ball Y is 500 grams. What is the moment of inertia

of the system about AB?

2. Two balls connected by a rod as shown in the figure below (Ignore rod’s mass). What is the

moment of inertia of the system?

3. The mass of each ball is 200 gram, connected by cord. The length of cord is 80 cm and the
width of the cord is 40 cm. What is the moment of inertia of the balls about the axis of rotation
(Ignore cord’s mass)?
-TORQUE

Torque is a measure of how much a force acting on an object causes that object to rotate. The

object rotates about an axis, which we will call the pivot point, and will label 'O'. We will call the

force 'F'. The distance from the pivot point to the point where the force acts is called the moment

arm, and is denoted by 'r'. Note that this distance, 'r', is also a vector, and points from the axis of

rotation to the point where the force acts. (Refer to Figure 1 for a pictoral representation of these

definitions.)

Torque is defined as  Γ=r×F=rFsin(θ)

In other words, torque is the cross product between the distance vector (the distance from the

pivot point to the point where force is applied) and the force vector, 'a' being the angle

between r and F.

Using the right hand rule, we can find the direction of the torque vector. If we put our fingers in the

direction of r, and curl them to the direction of F, then the thumb points in the direction of the torque

vector.

Imagine pushing a door to open it. The force of your push (F) causes the door to rotate about its
hinges (the pivot point, O). How hard you need to push depends on the distance you are from the
hinges (r) (and several other things, but let's ignore them now). The closer you are to the hinges
(i.e. the smaller r is), the harder it is to push. This is what happens when you try to push open a
door on the wrong side. The torque you created on the door is smaller than it would have been
had you pushed the correct side (away from its hinges).
Note that the force applied, F,, and the moment arm, r,, are independent of the object.
Furthermore, a force applied at the pivot point will cause no torque since the moment arm would
be zero (r=0).
Another way of expressing the above equation is that torque is the product of the magnitude of
the force and the perpendicular distance from the force to the axis of rotation (i.e. the pivot
point). 

Let the force acting on an object be broken up into its tangential (Ftan) and radial (Frad)
components (see Figure 2). (Note that the tangential component is perpendicular to the moment
arm, while the radial component is parallel to the moment arm.) The radial component of the
force has no contribution to the torque because it passes through the pivot point. So, it is only the
tangential component of the force which affects torque (since it is perpendicular to the line
between the point of action of the force and the pivot point).

There may be more than one force acting on an object, and each of these forces may act on
different point on the object. Then, each force will cause a torque. The net torque is the sum of
the individual torques.

Rotational Equilibrium is analogous to translational equilibrium, where the sum of the forces are
equal to zero. In rotational equilibrium, the sum of the torques is equal to zero. In other
words, there is no net torque on the object.

∑τ=0
Note that the SI units of torque is a Newton-metre, which is also a way of expressing a Joule
(the unit for energy). However, torque is not energy. So, to avoid confusion, we will use the units
N.m, and not J. The distinction arises because energy is a scalar quanitity, whereas torque is a
vector.

Problem Solving Example.

Solution

Arm length of the spanner, r = 15 cm = = 15×10−2m

Force, F = 2.5 N

Angle between r and F, θ = 90o

(i) Torque, τ θ = rF sin

(ii) As  per  the  right  hand  rule,  the direction of torque is out of the page.

(iii) The type of rotation caused by the torque is anticlockwise.

Let's Do This!

Try to solve the following problems involving our topic Torque.

1. How much torque is created by a 100 N perpendicular force placed 0.45 meters from the

fulcrum?

2. How much force would Joe have to apply perpendicular to create 550 Nm of torque 0.20

meters away from the bolt he is trying to loosen?

3. 3. What torque results from a 250 N force 30° from perpendicular on a wrench 0.28 meters

away from the bolt?

A) Find the perpendicular component of torque (216.5 N)

B) Find the torque using the perpendicular component of force (61 Nm when rounded to two

digits)
-ROTATIONAL KINEMATICS

In the section on uniform circular motion, we discussed motion in a circle at constant speed and,

therefore, constant angular velocity. However, there are times when angular velocity is not

constant—rotational motion can speed up, slow down, or reverse directions. Angular velocity is

not constant when a spinning skater pulls in her arms, when a child pushes a merry-go-round to

make it rotate, or when a CD slows to a halt when switched off. In all these cases, angular

acceleration occurs because the angular velocity ω changes. The faster the change occurs, the

greater is the angular acceleration. Angular acceleration α is the rate of change of angular

velocity. In equation form, angular acceleration is

where Δω is the change in angular velocity and Δt is the change in time. The units of angular

acceleration are (rad/s)/s, or rad/s2. If ω increases, then α is positive. If ω decreases, then α is

negative. Keep in mind that, by convention, counterclockwise is the positive direction and

clockwise is the negative direction. For example, the skater in Figure 6.9 is rotating

counterclockwise as seen from above, so her angular velocity is positive. Acceleration would be

negative, for example, when an object that is rotating counterclockwise slows down. It would be

positive when an object that is rotating counterclockwise speeds up.

 Figure 6.9 A figure skater spins in the counterclockwise direction, so

her angular velocity is normally considered to be positive. (Luu,

Wikimedia Commons)

The relationship between the magnitudes of tangential acceleration, a, and angular acceleration,

These equations mean that the magnitudes of tangential acceleration and angular acceleration are
directly proportional to each other. The greater the angular acceleration, the larger the change in
tangential acceleration, and vice versa. For example, consider riders in their pods on a Ferris
wheel at rest. A Ferris wheel with greater angular acceleration will give the riders greater
tangential acceleration because, as the Ferris wheel increases its rate of spinning, it also increases
its tangential velocity. Note that the radius of the spinning object also matters. For example, for a
given angular acceleration α, a smaller Ferris wheel leads to a smaller tangential acceleration for
the riders.

So far, we have defined three rotational variables: θ, ω, and α. These are the angular versions of
the linear variables x, v, and a. The following equations in the table represent the magnitude of
the rotational variables and only when the radius is constant and perpendicular to the rotational
variable. Table 6.2 shows how they are related.

Table 6.2 Rotational and Linear Variables

We can now begin to see how rotational quantities like θ, ω, and α are related to each other. For
example, if a motorcycle wheel that starts at rest has a large angular acceleration for a fairly long
time, it ends up spinning rapidly and rotates through many revolutions. Putting this in terms of
the variables, if the wheel’s angular acceleration α is large for a long period of time t, then the
final angular velocity ω and angle of rotation θ are large. In the case of linear motion, if an object
starts at rest and undergoes a large linear acceleration, then it has a large final velocity and will
have traveled a large distance.
The kinematics of rotational motion describes the relationships between the angle of rotation,
angular velocity, angular acceleration, and time. It only describes motion—it does not include
any forces or masses that may affect rotation (these are part of dynamics). Recall the kinematics
equation for linear motion: v=v0+at=0+ (constant a).As in linear kinematics, we assume a is
constant, which means that angular acceleration α is also a constant, because a=rα . The equation
for the kinematics relationship between ω, α, and t is
ω=ω0+αt (constantα)
where ω0 is the initial angular velocity. Notice that the equation is identical to the linear version,
except with angular analogs of the linear variables. In fact, all of the linear kinematics equations
have rotational analogs, which are given in Table 6.3. These equations can be used to solve
rotational or linear kinematics problem in which a and α are constant.

Table 6.3 Equations for Rotational Kinematics

In these equations, ω0 and v0 are initial values, t0 0 is zero, and the average angular velocity ω
and average velocity v are

Rotational Kinematics problem:

A deep-sea fisherman hooks a big fish that swims away from the boat pulling the fishing line
from his fishing reel. The whole system is initially at rest and the fishing line unwinds from the
reel at a radius of 4.50 cm from its axis of rotation. The reel is given an angular acceleration of
are identified and a relationship is then sought that can be used to solve for the unknown.110
rad/s2 for 2.00 s as seen in Figure 1.

(a) What is the final angular velocity of the reel?

(b) At what speed is fishing line leaving the reel after 2.00 s elapses?

(c) How many revolutions does the reel make?

(d) How many meters of fishing line come off the reel in this time?

Strategy

In each part of this example, the strategy is the same as it was for solving problems in linear
kinematics. In particular, known values are identified and a relationship is then sought that can
be used to solve for the unknown.
Rotational Kinematics additional problems:

1) Large freight trains accelerate very slowly. Suppose one such train accelerates from rest,
giving its 0.350-m-radius wheels an angular acceleration of 0.250 rad/s2 After the wheels have
made 200 revolutions (assume no slippage): (a) How far has the train moved down the track? (b)
What are the final angular velocity of the wheels and the linear velocity of the train?

2) A person decides to use a microwave oven to reheat some lunch. In the process, a fly
accidentally flies into the microwave and lands on the outer edge of the rotating plate and
remains there. If the plate has a radius of 0.15 m and rotates at 6.0 rpm, calculate the total
distance traveled by the fly during a 2.0-min cooking period. (Ignore the start-up and slow-down
times.)

3) Suppose a piece of dust finds itself on a CD. If the spin rate of the CD is 500 rpm, and the
piece of dust is 4.3 cm from the center, what is the total distance traveled by the dust in 3
minutes? (Ignore accelerations due to getting the CD rotating.)