A FEW ANNOUNCEMENTS

Lecture

slides from Friday posted to Canvas under Assignments

HW1

solutions posted to Canvas under Assignments; TA has

posted grades in Canvas grade center
HW2

will likely be assigned Friday

2.2 Equations of Motion in an

Inertial Frame
Book defines:

Position vector RG of the

center of mass G defined by:

Figure 2.1: (a) Two masses located in an

inertial frame. (b) Free-body diagrams.

The absolute velocity and the

absolute acceleration of G
defined by:

2.2 Equations of Motion in an

Inertial Frame
Example

2.2 calls for the numerical integration of states for 480sec

Resulting

X1, Y1, Z1, X2, Y2, Z2 position components at each time

comprise R1 & R2
Part

(a) calls for 3-D plot of position states of each body (R1 & R2)
(Fig 2.2)
Part

(b) calls for 3-D plot of R2 - R1 & RG - R1 (with m1 at the origin)

(Fig 2.3a)
Part

(c) calls for 3-D plot of R1 - RG & R2 - RG (with center of mass at

the origin) (Fig 2.3b)
Q:

Is the frame in Fig 2.3a an inertial frame? What about Fig 2.3b?
A: inertial frame cannot accelerate, so Fig 2.3b frame is inertial, Fig
2.3a frame is not

2.2 Equations of Motion in an

Inertial Frame

Note

Eqns (2.19a) &(2.19b) are NONLINEAR ODEs

This

tends to make the resulting motion difficult to predict or characterize

If

similar ODEs were written for THREE bodies, the resulting motion
would be even more extreme

2.2 Equations of Motion in an

Inertial Frame

Figure 2.4: The motion of

three identical masses as
seen from the inertial
frame in which m1 and m3
are initially at rest, while
m2 has an initial velocity v0
directed upwards and to
the right, as shown.

2.2 Equations of Motion in an

Inertial Frame

Figure 2.5: The same motion as Figure 2.4, as viewed from the inertial
frame attached to the center of mass G.

2.2 Equations of Motion in an

Inertial Frame
A quick

note about MATLAB:

Powerful

computational software based on vector/matrix

manipulation
Consists
Very
You

of the basic version plus numerous add-ons (toolboxes)

useful for the kinds of calculations performed in this course

are not required to know or use MATLAB in this course

However,

to learn

the student version of basic MATLAB is fairly cheap & easy

2.3 Equations of Relative Motion

Differentiating Eqn (2.5) twice & inserting
Eqns (2.18a) & (2.18b) yields the equation
of motion of m2 relative to m1:
The fundamental equation of
relative two-body motion.

where r is as defined in Eqn (2.5)

(
expressed in the frame
whose origin is at m1) and is the
gravitational parameter:
(km3/s2)

Figure 2.6: Reference frame xyz

attached to point mass of m1.

2.3 Equations of Relative Motion

If

frame xyz is non-rotating, the acceleration on the left-hand side

of Eqn (2.22) may be written as
(If

frame xyz were rotating, extra terms would have to be added

based on the frames angular velocity)
Eqn

(2.22), a vector ODE, may be expressed as 3 scalar ODEs

(Eqn (2.23))
Algorithm

2.2 describes numerical integration of Eqn (2.22) from t 0

to tf
Example

2.3 has an error in the initial state vector; it should read

y0 = [8000km 0 6000km 0 7km/s 0]

2.3 Equations of Relative Motion

Because

the center of mass G between m1 and m2 is not

accelerating, we can construct an inertial frame with origin at G
and write the equations of motion for m1 and m2 in this frame
Eqn

(2.18a) & (2.18b) are the equations of motion written in an

arbitrary inertial frame

R
(2.24) is the same as (2.18b) but with 2 replaced with r2

Why can we do this? Because r2 and R2 are equal, due to the

Eqn

fact that neither G nor the origin of the arbitrary inertial frame
are accelerating
Another explanation is that both the frame in which Eqn
(2.18b) is written and the frame in which Eqn (2.24) is written
are inertial

2.3 Equations of Relative Motion

Left-hand

side of Eqn (2.24) can be written in

terms of r2 instead of r (just as the right-hand
side is)
Result

is the un-numbered equation above

Eqn 2.27 (or Eqn 2.27 when expressed in
terms of ); equation of motion for m1 can be
written in similar fashion