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1. Cylinder

The moment of inertia of the shape is given by the equation

which is the sum of all the elemental particles masses multiplied by their distance from the rotational
axis squared.

As the size of these particles tends to zero, it can be thought of as made up of small cubes with
dimensions δw, δr and h,

So

and

so

The mass of the whole disk is its volume multiplied by its density:

so the moment of inertia can be expressed as:

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2. Cuboid
Consider the ‘corner’ section of a cuboid as shown:

The ‘corner’ shape with sides A and B is a quarter of the whole shape with sides C and D. The column
with sides a and b is a very narrow column, whose sides tend to zero size.

As always, the moment of inertia of the whole shape is given by the equation

which is the sum of all the elemental particles masses multiplied by their distance from the rotational
axis squared.

The mass of the narrow column is:

and its distance from the rotational axis, by Pythagoras, is

So

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There are four of these corner blocks which go to make up a complete cuboid, hence for the complete
cuboid:

Given that A = C/2 and B = D/2…

The mass of such a cuboid is given by

so

3. Rectangular section spoke

We can use the previous result to calculate an exact equation for a rectangular-section spoke. An
approximate equation is often quoted for this shape for when the length is much greater than the width...

which can be used for any cross sectional shape, but let’s calculate the exact equation, then we can
decide whether the approximation is valid or not depending on the circumstances.

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Using the result in section 2 for the corner block,

the moment of inertia of this wide spoke will be twice that of the corner block, since it constitutes two
corner sections, so:

The mass of the spoke is

So

From this equation, we can see that if the width, W, is small compared with the length, L, the equation
tends towards the common approximation.

3.1. Spoke not starting at rotational axis

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If the spoke does not start at the axis of rotation, but a distance D from it, the moment of inertia can be
calculated by subtracting the MOI of the ‘missing’ section from the MOI of a spoke that does start at the
axis,

4. Circular cross section spoke

Calculating the exact moment of inertia for this shape is very difficult due to an impossible integration,
and I haven’t figured out a way around that yet, so I can only present an approximation.

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This approximation assumes that the radius of the spoke, r, is small compared with the length, L. Then
we can assume that all the points on a disk cross section of the spoke are the same distance away from
the rotational axis.

The moment of inertia is

for each elemental particle. We will take a slice disk through the spoke of thickness ‘dw’ as the
elemental particle, which will have a mass

so

The mass of the spoke is

so

4.1. Spoke not starting at rotational axis

If the spoke does not start at the rotational axis, but a distance ‘D’ from it, then

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The mass of the spoke is

so

5. Circular ring

This shape is related to the cylinder, and the equation for moment of inertia can be found in the same
manner as the cylinder, but by integrating from the inner radius to the outer instead of from 0:

and

so

It can also be found by subtracting the moment of inertia of the ‘missing’ inner cylinder from the outer

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cylinder:

6. Rectangular ring
This shape can be dealt with in two ways. First it can be done similarly to the solid block, but the lower
limit of integration will not be zero. Secondly, and more easily, the moment of inertia can be calculated
for the outer solid block, and then the moment of inertia of the missing inner block can be subtracted
from it. This is the way we will do it.

The equation for the outer shape, from before, is

and the equation for the inner hollow would be

so the moment of inertia of the ring must be

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7. Toroid

The moment of inertia is given by the equation

First imagine the toroid made up of small disks as shown in the diagram above. Each of these disks is
further made up of cuboid blocks as shown. Each block has a volume

and so given the density is ρ, has a mass

The height of the block, y, is given by the equation for a circle:

We can sum these masses up, multiplied by their distance from the rotational axis to get the moment of
inertia.

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For one such disk, the sum of the masses of the blocks and their distance from the rotational axis is
given by the equation:

where (R + x) is the distance from the rotational axis.

These disks must then be summed around the whole circumference of the toroid, to give the total
moment of inertia:

Let’s work on single sections at a time. First, the inner integral. This is rather difficult to do, and so I’ll
yield to using Mathematica online, a superb tool available at
http://mss.math.vanderbilt.edu/~pscrooke/MSS/inthelp.html. Just type in the equation, click on "start",
then click on "Use Mathematica", and the result pops up!

Mathematica gives us the following answer for this integral:

You can see now why it was so hard to integrate by hand! This rapidly simplifies as the limits x=0 and
x=2r are inserted however:

When x=2r, this equation simplifies to:

When x=0, it simplifies to:

So the whole integration result is the first result (x=2r) minus the second (x=0) which is:

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This is a rather unpleasant result, but that’s the way it goes.

So our moment of inertia equation now becomes:

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