Moment of Inertia, General Form

Since the moment of inertia of an ordinary object involves a continuous distribution of

mass at a continually varying distance from any rotation axis, the calculation of moments
of inertia generally involves calculus, the discipline of mathematics which can handle
such continuous variables. Since the moment of inertia of a point mass is defined by

then the moment of inertia contribution by an infinitesmal mass element dm has the same
form. This kind of mass element is called a differential element of mass and its moment
of inertia is given by

Note that the differential element of moment of inertia dI must always be defined with
respect to a specific rotation axis. The sum over all these mass elements is called an
integral over the mass.

Usually, the mass element dm will be expressed in terms of the geometry of the object, so
that the integration can be carried out over the object as a whole (for example, over a long
uniform rod).

Having called this a general form, it is probably appropriate to point out that it is a
general form only for axes which may be called "principal axes", a term which includes
all axes of symmetry of objects. The concept of moment of inertia for general objects
about arbitrary axes is a much more complicated subject. The moment of inertia in such
cases takes the form of a mathematical tensor quantity which requires nine components to
completely define it.
 Moment of Inertia of a Systems of Particles

Newton's first law of motion says "A body maintains the current state of motion
unless acted upon by an external force." The measure of the inertia in the linear
motion is the mass of the system and its angular counterpart is the so-called
moment of inertia. The moment of inertia of a body is not only related to its
mass but also the distribution of the mass throughout the body. So two bodies of
the same mass may possess different moments of inertia.

A rigid body can be considered as a system of particles in which the relative

positions of the particles do not change. The moment of inertia of a single particle
(I) can be expressed as

[1]

where m = the mass of the particle, and r = the shortest distance from the axis of
rotation to the particle (Figure 1).

Figure 1

As shown in [1], moment of inertia is equal to mass times square of the distance
and it is also referred to as the second mass moment. Mass times distance,
mr, is called as the first mass moment. This concept of first mass moment is
normally used in deriving the center of mass of a system of particles or a rigid
body. See Center of Mass-System of Particles for the details.

Expanding [1] for a system of particles:

[2]

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Moment of Inertia of a Rigid Body

Based on [2], one can obtain the moment of inertia of a rigid by shown in Figure
2:

Figure 2

[3]

where ri = the position of particle i, and n = the unit vector of the axis of rotation.
Note here that the axis of rotation passes through the local reference frame, the
OXYZ system. Let

[4]

and

[5]

where cosα , cosβ & cosγ = the three direction cosines of vector n to the XYZ
system. Substituting [4] & [5] into [3] leads to
 [6]

where

[7]

Ixx, Iyy & Izz are called the moments of inertia while Ixy, Iyx, Iyz, Izy, Izx, & Ixz are the
products of inertia. For a rigid body, the relative position of the particles do not
change and one can write [7] as:

[8]

When the shape and the density distribution of the rigid body is precisely known,
one can use [8] to compute the moments and products of inertia. (See BSP
Equations for the MOI equations of the typical geometric shapes commonly used
in human body modeling.) Otherwise, it is difficult to compute them through
integration. Rather, the moment of inertia must be measured directly from the
object.
Physical Pendulum & Direct Measurement

Unfortunately, the integration approach is possible only when the body has a
known geometric shape. In the mathematical human body models such as
Hanavan (1964) and Yeadon (1990), it is assumed that the body segments show
a group of geometric shapes such as ellipsoid of revolution, elliptical solids, and
stadium solids. See BSP Equations for the details.

If the body has a irregular shape, the integration approach has not much use and
a direct measurement must be attempted. Figure 6 shows a body with irregular
shape which is rotating freely about an axis passing through its one end. The X
axis is the axis of rotation, thus, the center of mass (CM) of the body moves
within the YZ plane.

Figure 6

The torque produced by the weight of the body about the X axis is then

[19]

where Tx = the torque about the X axis, Ixx = MOI of the body about the X axis, α
= angular acceleration, m = the mass of the body, g = the gravitational
acceleration (9.81 m/s2), and L = the distance between the axis of rotation to the
body's CM. For a small θ ,

[20]

and, from [19],

[21]

Solving [21] for θ , one obtains

 [22]

where θ o = the amplitude, f = the frequency of the pendulum, ε = the phase

angle, T = the period of the pendulum. As shown in [22], the MOI of the body
about the X axis, after all, can be computed from the period of a small pendulum
motion of the body. The MOI about the parallel axis, which passes through the
CM of the body, can be also computed based on the parallel-axis theorem:

[23]