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Understanding the Inertia Tensor

The document discusses the moment of inertia tensor. It explains that for objects that can rotate freely in three dimensions, their moment of inertia is described by a 3x3 symmetric matrix. The diagonal elements are called the moments of inertia and represent the moment of inertia along an axis due to rotation about that same axis. The off-diagonal elements are called the products of inertia and represent the moment of inertia along one axis due to rotation about a different axis. It is also possible to find a set of principal axes where the mass distribution is symmetric, resulting in the off-diagonal elements being zero and the diagonal elements being the principal moments of inertia.

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Ranjith R Menon
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25 views16 pages

Understanding the Inertia Tensor

The document discusses the moment of inertia tensor. It explains that for objects that can rotate freely in three dimensions, their moment of inertia is described by a 3x3 symmetric matrix. The diagonal elements are called the moments of inertia and represent the moment of inertia along an axis due to rotation about that same axis. The off-diagonal elements are called the products of inertia and represent the moment of inertia along one axis due to rotation about a different axis. It is also possible to find a set of principal axes where the mass distribution is symmetric, resulting in the off-diagonal elements being zero and the diagonal elements being the principal moments of inertia.

Uploaded by

Ranjith R Menon
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Established as per the Section 2(f) of the UGC Act, 1956

Approved by AICTE, COA and BCI, New Delhi

Tensor Application :Moment Of Inertia

 Department of Physics, School of Applied Sciences

Internal Seminar-1
Ranjith R
[Link] Physics (2020-22)
Let's recall,        

 The moment of inertia essentially describes an object’s resistance to rotational


motion in response to a torque. 

 It is the rotational analog of mass.

  A quantity that determines the torque needed for a desired angular acceleration
about a rotational axis; similar to how mass determines the force needed for a
desired acceleration

 Moment of inertia  I = mr2


                Moment Of Inertia Tensor

  For bodies free to rotate in three dimensions, their moment of inertia can be
described by a symmetric 3 × 3 matrix.

 The moment of inertia tensor I can be represented as

 I xx I xy I xz 
 
I   I yx I yy I yz 
 I zx I zy I zz 
 

  In this session, we’ll see where the inertia tensor, moments of inertia, and products of inertia
come from, as well as attempt to gain some intuition for what they mean.
                                         Obtaining The Inertia Tensor

Let a system of  N   point particles (rigid body) undergo rotatory motion with
angular velocity       .If         and      are the mass and position vector of the ith
particle

     be its linear velocity, then total angular momentum of the system is given
by;

…..............(1)

where,
=
The next step is to compute the cross products,

Also,                                                and 

Approaching the cross product of this with position the same way, we have
The above equation can be written as follows;

….....(2)

We substitute the above equation into equation 1,we get


….....(3)

The above equation is of the form 

….......(4)
All the three components of angular momentum is given by,

Comparing equations (4) and (3)


Another method
All the three components of angular momentum is given by,

The moment of inertia tensor I is

 I xx I xy I xz 
 
I   I yx I yy I yz 
 I zx I zy I zz 

To find the components of inertia tensor

Where,

z
 Similarly ,proceeding for y-component and z-component ; we get the terms as,

 And the moment of inertia tensor,

I
• In symbols, it may be expressed as:

• The equation may be expressed in tensor form as:

Lµ Iµv v

• As Lµ and        are vectors from quotient law it follows that Iµv is a tensor of rank two.
v 

• The inertia tensor is a symmetric tensor


Further..

 The diagonal elements of the tensor( Ixx , Iyy , Izz) are called the moments of
inertia. [they represent moment of inertia of the body along an axis due to the
rotation about the same axis]

 The off diagonal elements are called 'products of inertia'.[moment of inertia of


a body along an axis due to the rotation about a different axis]

 We can also explain them in terms of torque and angular acceleration


                              T=Iα, we take the x-component of torque
                                          Tx= Ixxαx+ Ixyαy+ Ixzαz

 e.g., if you apply torque about the x axis, Ixx tells us how that affects the angular acceleration
about the x axis, based on the mass distribution of the object.
In the example above, the product of inertia tells us how a torque about the x axis aects angular
acceleration about the y axis, based on the mass distribution of the object. Similarly, tells us how
a torque about the x axis aects angular acceleration about the z axis. 
Principal axes
In fact, for any object, it’s possible to find a set of axes for which the mass distribution is symmetric
about every axis. These are called the “principal axes,” and when you compute the elements of the
inertia tensor using the principal axes, the off-diagonal elements all come out to zero and the diagonal
elements are called 'principal moment of inertia'

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