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The moment of inertia of a rigid body is a measure of how much the mass
of body is spread out. It is a measure of the rigid body's ability to resist
change in rotational motion.
2
where: dm is an element of mass of the body,
r dm
r is the perpendicular distance from the axis to
any arbitrary mass element of the body (think of the
Pythagorean Theorem to see r^2 in the integrand),
and the integral is over the mass of the whole body.
See Figure 1
mi
r
z
y
x
y
x
Example: Find the moment of inertia of the box in Figure 2 with respect to
the x axis.
y
x
Figure 2: Box (like the beam in our catapault)
Ix =
2 2
r dm = r dV density*volume = mass so dm = dV
c b a
2 2 2
=
( 2 2
)
y + z dx dy dz
c b a
2 2 2
c b
2 2
(
2 2
y +z x ) a
dy dz Integrating
= 2
first with
a respect to x
2
c b
2 2
c b
2 2
=
2 2
(
a y + z dy dz )
c b
2 2
c
2
1 3 2
a y + yz
b
dz Integrating
3 2
now with
=
b respect to y
2
c
2
c
2
b2 2
= ab + z dz
12
c
2
2
= ab b z + 1 z3 c
Integrating
12 3 2
finally with
c respect to z
2
= abc b2 + c2
12
( )
(
= m b2 + c2
12
) since mass = density*volume