Moment of inertia

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This article is about the moment of inertia of a rotating object. For the moment of inertia
dealing with bending of a plane, see second moment of area.

In classical mechanics, moment of inertia, also called mass moment of inertia, rotational
inertia, or the angular mass, (SI units kg·m²) is a measure of an object's resistance to changes to
its rotation. It is the inertia of a rotating body with respect to its rotation. The moment of inertia
plays much the same role in rotational dynamics as mass does in linear dynamics, describing the
relationship between angular momentum and angular velocity, torque and angular acceleration,
and several other quantities. The symbol I and sometimes J are usually used to refer to the
moment of inertia or polar moment of inertia.
While a simple scalar treatment of the moment of inertia suffices for many situations, a more
advanced tensor treatment allows the analysis of such complicated systems as spinning tops and
gyroscopic motion.

The concept was introduced by Leonhard Euler in his book Theoria motus corporum solidorum
seu rigidorum in 1765.[1] In this book, he discussed the moment of inertia and many related
concepts, such as the principal axis of inertia.

Contents
[hide]

 1 Overview
 2 Scalar moment of inertia
o 2.1 Properties
o 2.2 Examples
 3 Moment of inertia tensor
o 3.1 Definition
o 3.2 Derivation of the tensor components
o 3.3 Reduction to scalar
 4 Principal axes of inertia
o 4.1 Parallel axis theorem
o 4.2 Rotational symmetry
o 4.3 Comparison with covariance matrix
 5 See also
 6 Notes
 7 References
 8 External links

[edit] Overview
The moment of inertia of an object about a given axis describes how difficult it is to change its
angular motion about that axis. Therefore, it encompasses not just how much mass the object has
overall, but how far each bit of mass is from the axis. The farther out the object's mass is, the
more rotational inertia the object has, and the more force is required to change its rotation rate.
For example, consider two hoops, A and B, made of the same material and of equal mass. Hoop
A is larger in diameter but thinner than B. It requires more effort to accelerate hoop A (change its
angular velocity) because its mass is distributed farther from its axis of rotation: mass that is
farther out from that axis must, for a given angular velocity, move more quickly than mass closer
in. So in this case, hoop A has a larger moment of inertia than hoop B.
Divers reducing their moments of inertia to increase their rates of rotation

The moment of inertia of an object can change if its shape changes. A figure skater who begins a
spin with arms outstretched provides a striking example. By pulling in her arms, she reduces her
moment of inertia, causing her to spin faster (by the conservation of angular momentum).

The moment of inertia has two forms, a scalar form, I, (used when the axis of rotation is
specified) and a more general tensor form that does not require the axis of rotation to be
specified. The scalar moment of inertia, I, (often called simply the "moment of inertia") allows a
succinct analysis of many simple problems in rotational dynamics, such as objects rolling down
inclines and the behavior of pulleys. For instance, while a block of any shape will slide down a
frictionless decline at the same rate, rolling objects may descend at different rates, depending on
their moments of inertia. A hoop will descend more slowly than a solid disk of equal mass and
radius because more of its mass is located far from the axis of rotation, and thus needs to move
faster if the hoop rolls at the same angular velocity. However, for (more complicated) problems
in which the axis of rotation can change, the scalar treatment is inadequate, and the tensor
treatment must be used (although shortcuts are possible in special situations). Examples
requiring such a treatment include gyroscopes, tops, and even satellites, all objects whose
alignment can change.

The moment of inertia is also called the mass moment of inertia (especially by mechanical
engineers) to avoid confusion with the second moment of area, which is sometimes called the
moment of inertia (especially by structural engineers). The easiest way to differentiate these
quantities is through their units (kg·m² as opposed to m4). In addition, moment of inertia should
not be confused with polar moment of inertia, which is a measure of an object's ability to resist
torsion (twisting) only.

[edit] Scalar moment of inertia

Consider a rigid body rotating with angular velocity ω around a certain axis. The body
consists of N point masses mi whose distances to the rotation axis are denoted ri. Each point mass
will have the speed vi = ωri, so that the total kinetic energy T of the body can be calculated as
In this expression the quantity in parentheses is called the moment of inertia of the body (with
respect to the specified axis of rotation). It is a purely geometric characteristic of the object, as it
depends only on its shape and the position of the rotation axis. The moment of inertia is usually
denoted with the capital letter I:

It is worth emphasizing that ri here is the distance from a point towards the axis of rotation, not
towards the origin. As such, the moment of inertia will be different when considering rotations
about different axes.

Similarly, the moment of inertia of a continuous solid body rotating about a known axis can be
calculated by replacing the summation with the integral:

where r is the radius vector of a point within the body, ρ(r) is the mass density at point r, and
d(r) is the distance from point r to the axis of rotation. The integration goes over the volume V of
the body.

[edit] Properties

The moment of inertia of the body is additive. That is, if a body can be decomposed (either
physically or conceptually) into several constituent parts, then the moment of inertia of the whole
body about a given axis is equal to the sum of moments of inertia of each part around the same
axis.[2]

Basing just on the dimensional analysis, the moment of inertia must take the form I = c·M·L2,
where M is the mass, L is the “size” of the body in the direction perpendicular to the axis of
rotation, and c is a dimensionless inertial constant. Additionally, the length is called
the radius of gyration of the body.

If Ix, Iy, Iz are moments of inertia around three perpendicular axes passing through the body’s
center of mass, then each of them cannot be greater than the sum of two others: for example Iz ≤
Ix + Iy. Here the equality holds only if the body is flat and located in the Oxy coordinate plane.

If the object’s moment of inertia I around a certain axis passing through the center of mass is
known, then the parallel axis theorem provides a convenient formula to compute the moment of
inertia Id of the same body around a different axis, which is parallel to the original and located at
a distance d from it. The formula states:
This formula is only suitable when the old and the new axes are parallel. In order to compute the
moment of inertia about an arbitrary axis, one has to use the object’s moment of inertia tensor.

The rotational kinetic energy of a rigid body with angular velocity ω (in radians per second) is
expressed in terms of the object’s moment of inertia:

This formula is similar to the translational kinetic energy K = ½mv2. Thus, the moment of inertia
I plays the role of mass in the rotational dynamics. One key difference between the mass and the
(scalar) moment of inertia is that the latter depends on the axis rotation and so is not truly
invariant. The invariant characteristic of the body in rotational motion is the tensor of moment of
inertia I, defined later.

The angular momentum of the body rotating around one of its principal axis is also proportional
to the moment of inertia:

This expression is parallel to the formula for translational momentum p = mv, where the moment
of inertia I plays the role of mass m, and the angular velocity ω stands for the speed v. The scalar
formula is valid only for rotations around one of the principal axes of the body, and does not
hold in other cases of interest, such as the torque-free precession of a rotating object. The
equivalent formula involving the tensor moment of inertia is always correct.

Also when the body rotates around one of its principal axes, and the direction of the axis of
rotation remains constant, one can relate the torque on an object and its angular acceleration in a
similar equation:

where τ is the torque and α is the angular acceleration.

[edit] Examples

Main article: List of moments of inertia

Diatomic molecule, with atoms m1 and m2 at a distance d from each other, rotating around the
axis which passes through the molecule’s center of mass and is perpendicular to the direction of
the molecule.
The easiest way to calculate this molecule’s moment of inertia is to use the parallel axis theorem.
If we consider rotation around the axis passing through the atom m1, then the moment of inertia
will be I1 = m1·0 + m2·d 2 = m2d 2. On the other hand, by the parallel axis theorem this moment is
equal to I1 = I + (m1 + m2)·a2, where I is the moment of inertia around the axis passing through
the center of mass, and a is the distance between the center of mass and the first atom. By the
center of mass formula, this distance is equal to a = m2d / (m1 + m2). Thus,

Thin rod of mass m and length ℓ, rotating around the axis which passes through its center and is
perpendicular to the rod.

Let Oz be the axis of rotation, and Ox the axis along the rod. If ρ is the density, and s the cross-
section of the rod (so that m = ρℓs), then the volume element for the integral formula will be
equal to dV = s·dx, where x changes from −½ℓ to ½ℓ. The moment of inertia can be found by
computing the integral:

Solid ball of mass m and radius R, rotating around an axis which passes through the center.

Suppose Oz is the axis of rotation. The distance from point r = (x,y,z) towards the axis Oz is
equal to d(r)2 = x2 + y2. Thus, in order to compute the moment of inertia Iz, we need to evaluate
the integral ∭(x2 + y2) dV. The calculation considerably simplifies if we notice that by symmetry
of the problem, the moments of inertia around all axes are equal: Ix = Iy = Iz. Then

where r2 = x2 + y2 + z2 is the distance from point r to the origin. This integral is easy to evaluate
in the spherical coordinates, the volume element will be equal to dV = 4πr2dr, where r goes from
0 to R. Thus,

[edit] Moment of inertia tensor

In three dimensions, if the axis of rotation is not given, we need to be able to generalize the
scalar moment of inertia to a quantity that allows us to compute a moment of inertia about
arbitrary axes. This quantity is known as the moment of inertia tensor and can be represented
as a symmetric positive semi-definite matrix, I. This representation elegantly generalizes the
scalar case: The angular momentum vector, is related to the rotation velocity vector, ω by

and the kinetic energy is given by

as compared with

in the scalar case.

Like the scalar moment of inertia, the moment of inertia tensor may be calculated with respect to
any point in space, but for practical purposes, the center of mass is almost always used.

[edit] Definition

For a rigid object of N point masses mk, the moment of inertia tensor has components given by
 ,

where

and I12 = I21, I13 = I31, and I23 = I32. (Thus I is a symmetric tensor.) Note that the scalars Iij
with are called the products of inertia.

Here Ixx denotes the moment of inertia around the x-axis when the objects are rotated around the
x-axis, Ixy denotes the moment of inertia around the y-axis when the objects are rotated around
the x-axis, and so on.

These quantities can be generalized to an object with distributed mass, described by a mass
density function, in a similar fashion to the scalar moment of inertia. One then has

In more-concise notation:
where is the vector from the center of mass to a point in the volume, V and is their outer
product, E3 is the 3 × 3 identity matrix, and V is a region of space completely containing the
object. Alternatively, the above can be described in indicial notation as:

The diagonal elements of I are called the principal moments of inertia.

[edit] Derivation of the tensor components

The distance r of a particle at from the axis of rotation passing through the origin in the
direction is . By using the formula I = mr2 (and some simple vector algebra) it
can be seen that the moment of inertia of this particle (about the axis of rotation passing through
the origin in the direction) is This is a quadratic form in
and, after a bit more algebra, this leads to a tensor formula for the moment of inertia

This is exactly the formula given below for the moment of inertia in the case of a single particle.
For multiple particles we need only recall that the moment of inertia is additive in order to see
that this formula is correct.

[edit] Reduction to scalar

For any axis , represented as a column vector with elements ni, the scalar form I can be
calculated from the tensor form I as

The range of both summations correspond to the three Cartesian coordinates.

The following equivalent expression avoids the use of transposed vectors which are not
supported in maths libraries because internally vectors and their transpose are stored as the same
linear array,

However it should be noted that although this equation is mathematically equivalent to the
equation above for any matrix, inertia tensors are symmetrical. This means that it can be further
simplified to:

[edit] Principal axes of inertia

By the spectral theorem, since the moment of inertia tensor is real and symmetric, it is possible
to find a Cartesian coordinate system in which it is diagonal, having the form

where the coordinate axes are called the principal axes and the constants I1, I2 and I3 are called
the principal moments of inertia. The principal axes of a body, therefore, are a cartesian
coordinate system whose origin is located at the center of mass. [3] The unit vectors along the
principal axes are usually denoted as (e1, e2, e3). This result was first shown by J. J.
Sylvester (1852), and is a form of Sylvester's law of inertia. The principal axis with the highest
moment of inertia is sometimes called the figure axis or axis of figure.

When all principal moments of inertia are distinct, the principal axes are uniquely specified. If
two principal moments are the same, the rigid body is called a symmetrical top and there is no
unique choice for the two corresponding principal axes. If all three principal moments are the
same, the rigid body is called a spherical top (although it need not be spherical) and any axis
can be considered a principal axis, meaning that the moment of inertia is the same about any
axis.

The principal axes are often aligned with the object's symmetry axes. If a rigid body has an axis
of symmetry of order m, i.e., is symmetrical under rotations of 360°/m about a given axis, the
symmetry axis is a principal axis. When m > 2, the rigid body is a symmetrical top. If a rigid
body has at least two symmetry axes that are not parallel or perpendicular to each other, it is a
spherical top, e.g., a cube or any other Platonic solid.

The motion of vehicles is often described about these axes with the rotations called yaw, pitch,
and roll.
A practical example of this mathematical phenomenon is the routine automotive task of
balancing a tire, which basically means adjusting the distribution of mass of a car wheel such
that its principal axis of inertia is aligned with the axle so the wheel does not wobble.

[edit] Parallel axis theorem

Once the moment of inertia tensor has been calculated for rotations about the center of mass of
the rigid body, there is a useful labor-saving method to compute the tensor for rotations offset
from the center of mass.

If the axis of rotation is displaced by a vector R from the center of mass, the new moment of
inertia tensor equals

where m is the total mass of the rigid body, E3 is the 3 × 3 identity matrix, and is the outer
product.

[edit] Rotational symmetry

Using the above equation to express all moments of inertia in terms of integrals of variables
either along or perpendicular to the axis of symmetry usually simplifies the calculation of these
moments considerably.

[edit] Comparison with covariance matrix

Main article: Moment (mathematics)

The moment of inertia tensor about the center of mass of a 3 dimensional rigid body is related to
the covariance matrix of a trivariate random vector whose probability density function is
proportional to the pointwise density of the rigid body by:[citation needed]

where n is the number of points.

The structure of the moment-of-inertia tensor comes from the fact that it is to be used as a
bilinear form on rotation vectors in the form

Each element of mass has a kinetic energy of

The velocity of each element of mass is where r is a vector from the center of rotation to
that element of mass. The cross product can be converted to matrix multiplication so that

and similarly

Thus,

plugging in the definition of the term leads directly to the structure of the moment
tensor.

[edit] See also

 List of moments of inertia
 List of moment of inertia tensors
 Rotational energy
 Parallel axis theorem
 Perpendicular axis theorem
 Stretch rule
 Tire balance
 Poinsot's ellipsoid
 Instant centre of rotation

[edit] Notes
1. ^ Euler, Leonhard (1765-01-01) (in Latin), Theoria motus corporum solidorum seu rigidorum:
Ex primis nostrae cognitionis principiis stabilita et ad omnes motus, qui in huiusmodi corpora
cadere possunt, accommodata, Cornell University Library, ISBN 978-1429742818
2. ^ “Mass moment of inertia” by Mehrdad Negahban, University of Nebraska
3. ^ Blake, Alexander (1985), Handbook of mechanics, materials, and structures, Wiley-IEEE,
ISBN 0471862398, http://books.google.com/?id=Wp1XC3mN_2IC&pg=PA202&dq=
%22principal+axis%22+moment+of+inertia+maximum

[edit] References
  Goldstein, H. (1980), Classical Mechanics (2nd ed.), Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-
02918-9.
 Landau, LD; Lifshitz (1976), Mechanics (3rd ed.), Pergamon Press, ISBN 0-08-021022-8
(hardcover); ISBN 0-08-029141-4 (softcover).
 Marion, JB; Thornton, ST. (1995), Classical Dynamics of Systems and Particles (4th ed.),
Thomson, ISBN 0-03-097302-3.
 Sylvester, J J (1852), "A demonstration of the theorem that every homogeneous quadratic
polynomial is reducible by real orthogonal substitutions to the form of a sum of positive
and negative squares", Philosophical Magazine IV: 138–142,
http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~aar/sylv/inertia.pdf, retrieved 2008-06-27
 Symon, KR (1971), Mechanics (3rd ed.), Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-07392-7.
 Tenenbaum, RA (2004), Fundamentals of Applied Dynamics, Springer, ISBN 0-387-
00887-X.

[edit] External links

 Angular momentum and rigid-body rotation in two and three dimensions
 Lecture notes on rigid-body rotation and moments of inertia
 The moment of inertia tensor
 An introductory lesson on moment of inertia: keeping a vertical pole not falling down
(Java simulation)
 Tutorial on finding moments of inertia, with problems and solutions on various basic
shapes

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_of_inertia"

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