CHAPTER 134 aim The Kinematics of Rigid Body Motion A tigid body was defined previously as a system ot mass points subject to the holonomic constraints that the distances between all pairs of points remain con- stant throughout the motion. Although something of an idealization, the concept is quite useful, and the mechanics of rigid body motion deserves a full exposition. In this chapter we shall discuss principally the kinematics of rigid bodies, 1, the nature and characteristics of their motions. We devote some time to develop- sng the mathematical techniques involved, which are of considerable interest in themselves, and have many important applications to other fields of physics. ‘Of essential importance is the rotational motion of a rigid body. These consid- erations lead directly tothe relation between the time rate of change of a vector in an inertial frame and the time rate of change of the same vector in a rotating frame. Since itis appropriate at that point, we leave kinematics and develop the description of the dynamics of motion in a rotating frame. Inthe next chapter we discuss, using the Lagrangian formulation, how the motion of extended objects is generated by applied forces and torques. ‘THE INDEPENDENT COORDINATES OF A RIGID BODY Before discussing the motion of a rigid body, we must first establish how many independent coordinates are necessary to specify its configuration. From experi- ence, we expect that there should be six independent coordinates. Three extemal coordinates are needed to specify the position of some reference point in the body and three more to specify how the body is oriented with respect to the extemal coordinates. In this section we show that these intuitive expectations are correct. A tigid body with WV particles can at most have 3NV degrees of freedom, but these are greatly reduced by the constraints, which can be expressed as equations of the form, ty =. a) Here ris the distance between the th and /th particles and the c's are constants ‘The actual number of degrees of freedom cannot be obtained simply by subtrect- ing the number of constraint equations from 3N, for there are }N(N —1) possible equations of the form of Eq. (4.1), which is far greater than 3N for large N. In truth, the Eqs. (4.1) are not all independent4.1. The Independent Coordinates of a Rigid Body 135 aangid body by its distances from three reference To fix a point in the all other points in the body; we need only state the distances to any three other noncollinear points (cf Fig. 4,1). Thus, once the positions of three of the particles of the rigid body are determined, the constraints fix the positions of all remaining particles. The number of degrees of freedom therefore cannot be more than nine But the three reference pots are themselves not independent; there are in fact three equations of rigid constraint imposed on them, body, it is not necessary to specify its distances to na=c2 masea3, n3=ei3, that reduce the number of degrees of freedom to six. That only six coordinates are needed can also be seen from the following considerations. To establish the position of one of the reference points, three coordinates must be supplied. But ‘once point 1 is fixed, point 2 can be specified by only two coordinates, since it is ‘constrained to move on the surface of a sphere centered at point 1. With these two points determined, point 3 has only one degree of freedom, for it can only rotate about the axis joining the other two points. Hence, a total of six coordinates is sufficient. A rigid body in space thus needs six independent generalized coordinates to specify its configuration, no matter how many particles it may contain—even in the limit of a continuous body. Of course, there may be additional constraints on the body besides the constraint of rigidity. For example, the body may be con- strained to move on a surface, or with one point fixed. In such case, the additional constrains will further reduce the number of degrees of freedom, and hence the ‘number of independent coordinates. How shall these coordinates be assigned” Note that the set of configuration of a rigid body is completely specified by locating a Cartesian set of coordinates136 Chapter 4 The Kinematics of Rigid Body Motion FIGURE 42 _Unpnmed axes represent an external reference set of axes: the primed axes are fixed inthe rigid body. fixed in the rigid body (the primed axes shown in Fig. 4.2) relative to the coor- dinate axes of the external space. Clearly three of the coondinates are needeé to specify the coordinates of the origin of this “body” set of axes. The remaining three coordinates must then specify the orientation ofthe primed axes relative to ‘coordinate system parallel to the external axes, but with the same origin asthe primed axes. There are many ways of specifying the orientation of a Cartesian set of axes relative to another set with common origin. One fruitful procedure is to state the direction cosines of the primed axes relative to the unprimed. Thus, the x axis could be specified by its three direction cosines ay, a, a3, with respect to the x, 1. z axes. If, as customary jj, kare three unit vectors along x, y,z, and Yj’. K’ perform the same function in the primed system (cf. Fig. 4.3, then these direction cosines are defined as FIGURE 43 Direction cosines of the body set of axes relative toan external set of axes