Engineering Mechancis Manoj K Harbola-IIT Knapur .PDF Filename UTF-8''Engineering Mechancis (Manoj K Harbola-IIT Knapur)

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Engineering Mechanics
Lectures 1 & 2 : Review of the three laws of motion and vector algebra
Lectures 1&2
Review of the three laws of motion and vector algebra
In this course on Engineering Mechanics, we shall be learning about mechanical interaction

between bodies. That is we will learn how different bodies apply forces on one another and
how they then balance to keep each other in equilibrium. That will be done in the first part of
the course. So in the first part we will be dealing with STATICS. In the second part we then
go to the motion of particles and see how does the motion of particles get affected when a
force is applied on them. We will first deal with single particles and will then move on to
describe the motion of rigid bodies.
The basis of all solutions to mechanics problems are the Newton's laws of motion in one
form or the other. The laws are:
First law: A body does not change its state of motion unless acted upon by a force. This
law is based on observations but in addition it also defines an inertial frame . By definition
an inertial frame is that in which a body does not change its state of motion unless acted
upon by a force. For example to a very good approximation a frame fixed in a room is an
inertial frame for motion of balls/ objects in that room. On the other hand if you are sitting in
a train that is accelerating, you will see that objects outside are changing their speed without
any apparent force. Then the motion of objects outside is changing without any force. The
train is a non-inertial frame.
Second law: The second law is also part definition and part observation. It gives the force
in terms of a quantity called the mass and the acceleration of a particle. It says that a force
of magnitude F applied on a particle gives it an acceleration a proportional to the force. In
other words
F = ma , (1)
where m is identified as the inertial mass of the body. So if the same force - applied either by
a spring stretched or compressed to the same length - acting on two different particles
produces accelerations a1 and a2, we can say that
m1 a1 = m2 a2
or (2)
Thus by comparing accelerations of a particle and of a standard mass (unit mass) when the
same force is applied on each one them we get the mass of that particle. Thus gives us the
definition of mass. It also gives us how to measure the force via the equation F = ma. One
Newton (abbreviated as N) of force is that providing an acceleration of 1m/s2 to a standard
mass of 1 kg. If you want to feel how much in 1 Newton , hold your palm horizontally and put
a hundred gram weight on it; the force that you feel is about 1N.
Of course you cannot always measure the force applied by accelerating objects. For
example if you are pushing a wall, how much force you are applying cannot be measured by
observing the acceleration of the wall because the wall is not moving. However once we
have adopted a measure of force, we can always measure it by comparing the force applied
in some other situation.
In the first part of the course i.e. Statics we consider only equilibrium situations. We will
therefore not be looking at F = ma but rather at the balance of different forces applied on a
system. In the second part - Dynamics - we will be applying F = ma extensively.
Third Law: Newton's third law states that if a body A applies a force F on body B , then B
also applies an equal and opposite force on A . (Forces do not cancel such other as they
are acting on two different objects)
https://nptel.ac.in/courses/122/104/122104014/ 1/2
Figure 1
Thus if they start from the position of rest A and B will tend to move in opposite directions.
You may ask: if A and B are experiencing equal and opposite force, why do they not cancel
each other? This is because - as stated above - the forces are acting on two different
objects. We shall be using this law a lot both in static as well as in dynamics.
After this preliminary introduction to what we will be doing in the coming lectures, we begin
with a review of vectors because the quantities like force, velocities are all vectors and we
should therefore know how to work with the vectors. I am sure you have learnt some basic
manipulations with vectors in your 12th grade so this lectures is essentially to recapitulate
on what you have learnt and also introduce you to one or two new concepts.
You have learnt in the past is that vectors are quantity which have both a magnitude and a
direction in contrast to scalar quantities that are specified by their magnitude only. Thus a
quantity like force is a vector quantity because when I tell someone that I am applying X-
amount of force, by itself it is not meaningful unless I also specify in which direction I am
applying this force. Similarly when I ask you where your friend's house is you can't just tell
me that it is some 500 meters far. You will also have to tell me that it is 500 meters to the
north or 300 meters to the east and four hundred meters to the north from here. Without
formally realizing it, you are telling me a about a vector quantity. Thus quantities like
displacement, velocity, acceleration, force are vectors. On the other hand the quantities
distance, speed and energy are scalar quantities. In the following we discuss the algebra
involving vector quantities. We begin with a discussion of the equality of vectors.
Equality of Vectors: Since a vector is defined by the direction and magnitude, two
vectors are equal if they have the same magnitude and direction. Thus in figure 2
vector is equal to vector and but not equal to vector although all of them have
the same magnitude.
Thus we conclude that any two vectors which have the same magnitude and are
parallel to each other are equal. If they are not parallel then they cannot be equal no
matter what their magnitude.
In physical situations even two equal vectors may produce different effects depending
on where they are located. For example take the force applied on a disc. If applied
on the rim it rotates the wheel at a speed different from when it is applied to a point
nearer to the center. Thus although it is the same force, applied at different points it
produces different effects. On the other hand, imagine a thin rope wrapped on a wheel
and being pulled out horizontally from the top. On the rope no matter where the force
is applied, the effect is the same. Similarly we may push the wheel by applying the
same force at thee end of a stick with same result (see figure 3).
Thus we observe that a force applied anywhere along its line of applications produces
the same effect. This is known as transmissibility of force. On the other hand if the
same force is applied at a point away from its line of application, the effect produced is
different. Thus the transmissibility does not mean that force can be applied anywhere
to produce the same effect but only at any point on its line of application.
Adding and subtracting two vectors (Graphical Method): When we add two
vectors and by graphical method to get , we take vector , put the tail of
on the head of .Then we draw a vector from the tail of to the head of . That
vector represents the resultant (Figure 4). I leave it as an exercise for you to
show that . In other words, show that vector addition is commutative.
Let us try to understand that it is indeed meaningful to add two vectors like this.
Imagine the following situations. Suppose when we hit a ball, we can give it velocity
. Now imagine a ball is moving with velocity and you hit it an additional velocity .
From experience you know that the ball will now start moving in a direction different
from that of . This final direction is the direction of and the magnitude of
velocity now is going to be given by the length of .
Now if we add a vector to itself, it is clear from the graphical method that its
magnitude is going to be 2 times the magnitude of and the direction is going to
remain the same as that of . This is equivalent to multiplying the vector by 2.
Similarly if 3 vectors are added we get the resultant . So we have now got the idea
of multiplying a vector by a number n . If simply means: add the vector n times and this
results in giving a vector in the same direction with a magnitude that n times larger.
You may now ask: can I multiply by a negative number? The answer is yes. Let us see
what happens, for example, when I multiply a vector by -1. Recall from your school
mathematics that multiplying by -1 changes the number to the other side of the
number line. Thus the number -2 is two steps to the left of 0 whereas the number 2 is
two steps to the right. It is exactly the same with vectors. If represents a vector to
the right, would represent a vector in the direction opposite i.e. to the left. It is now
easy to understand what does the vector represent? It is a vector of the same
magnitude as that of but in the direction opposite to it (Figure 5). Having defined
, it is now easy to see what is the vector ? It is a vector of magnitude

in the direction opposite to .
Having defined , it is now straightforward to subtract one vector from the other. To
subtract a vector from , we simply add to that is .
Thus to subtract vector from graphically, we add and . This is shown in
figure 6.
Again I leave it as an exercise for you to show that is not equal to but
=- . We now solve a couple of examples.
Example1: A person walks 300m to the east and 400m to the north to reach his
friend's house. What is the total displacement of the person, and what is the total
distance traveled by him?
Recall that distance is a scalar quantity. Thus the total distance covered is 700m.
Displacement, on the other hand, is a vector quantity so to find the net displacement,
we add the two vectors to get a displacement of 500m at an angle
from east to north (Figure 7).
Example 2 : Two persons are pushing a box so that the net force on the box is 12N to
the east If one of the person is applying a force 5N to the north, what is the force
applied by the other person.
Let the force by person applying 5N be denoted by and that by the other person by
. We then have
so that
Solution for is given graphically in figure 8. The force comes out to be 13N at an
angle of from east to south.
Figure 8
Although graphical way is nice to visualize vectors in two dimensions, it becomes

difficult to work with it in three dimensions, and also when many vectors and many
operations with them are involved. So vector algebra is best done by representing
them in terms of their components along the x, y & z axes in space. We now discuss
how to this is done.
To represent vectors in terms of their x,y and z components, let us first introduce the
concept of unit vector. A unit vector in a particular direction is a vector of magnitude
'1' in that direction. So a vector in that particular direction can be written as a number
times the unit vector . Let us denote the unit vector in x-direction as , in y-direction
as and in z-direction as . Now any vector can be described as a sum of three
vectors , and in the directions x, y and z, respectively, in any order (recall

that order does not matter because vector sum is commutative). Then a vector
Further, using the concept of unit vectors, we can write , where Ax is a

number. Similarly and . So the vector above can be written as
where Ax, Ay and Az are known as the x, y, & z components of the vector. For example
a vector would look as shown in figure 9.
It is clear from figure 9 that the magnitude of the vector is
. Now when we add two vector, say
and , all we have to do is to add their x-components, y-

components and the z-components and then combine them to get
Similarly multiplying a vector by a number is same as increasing all its components by

the same amount. Thus
How about the multiplying by -1? It just changes the sign of all the components.
Putting it all together we see that
Having done the addition and subtraction of two vectors, we now want to look at the
product of two vectors. Let us see what all possible products do we get when we
multiply components of two vectors. By multiplying all components with one another,
we have in all nine numbers shown below:
The question is how do we define the product of two vectors from the nine different
numbers obtained above? We will delay the answer for some time and come back to
this question after we establish the transformation properties of scalars and vectors.
By transformation properties we mean how does a scalar quantity or the components
of a vector quantity change when we look at them from a different (rotated) frame?
Let us first look at a scalar quantity. As an example, we take the distance traveled by a
person. If we say that the distance covered by a person in going from one place to
another is 1000m in one frame, it remains the same irrespective of whether we look at
it from the frame (xy ) or in a frame (x' y' ) rotates about the z-axis (see figure 10).
Let us now say that a person moves 800 meter along the x-axis and 600 meters along
the y-axis so that his net displacement is a vector of 1000m in magnitude at an angle
of from the x-axis as shown in figure 10. The total distance traveled by the person is
1400m. Now let us look at the same situation frame different frame which has its x' & y'
axis rotated about the z- axis. Note that the total distance traveled by the person (a
scalar quantity) remains the same, 1400m, in both the frames. Further, whereas the
magnitude of the displacement & its direction in space remains unchanged, its
components along the x' and y' axis, shown by dashed lines in figure 10, are now
different. Thus we conclude the scalar quantity remains unchanged when seen from a
rotational frame. The component of a given vector are however different in the rotated
frame, as demonstrated by the example above. Let us now see how the components
in the original frame and the rotated frame are related.
In figure 11, OA is a vector with Ax = OB , Ay = AB, Ax' = OA' and Ay' = AA'. Using the
dashed lines drawn in the figure, we obtain
Similarly
So we learn that if the same vector is observed from a frame obtained by a rotation
about the z-axis by an angle θ, its x and y components in the new frame are
One can similarly define how components mix when rotation is about the y or the x-
axis. Under the y axis rotation
And under a rotation about the x-axis
Let us summarize the results obtained above:
1. Scalar quantity is specified by a number and that number remains the same in two different
frames rotated with respect to each other.
2. A vector quantity is specified by its components along the x, y, and the z axes and when seen
from another frame rotated with respect to a given frame, these components change
according to the rules derived above.
We are now ready to get back to defining the product of two vectors. Recall that we
had a collection of nine quantities:
We are now going to mix these quantities in such a manner that one combination will
give a scalar quantity whereas the other one will give us a vector quantity. This then
defines the scalar and vector product of two vectors.
Scalar or dot product: Now it is easy to show that is a

scalar quantity. To show this we calculate this quantity in a rotated frame (rotation
could be about the x, y or the z axis) that is obtain and show
that it is equal to . As an example we show it for a frame
rotated about the z-axis with respect to the other one. In this case
Therefore we get
One can similarly show it for rotations about other axes, which is left as an exercise.
This then leads us to define the scalar product of two vectors and as
As shown above this value remain unchanged when view from two different frame-one
rotated with respect to the other. Thus it is a scalar quantity and this product is known
as the scalar or dot product of two vectors . It is straightforward to see from
the definition above that the dot product is commutative that is .
Scalar product of two vectors can also be written in another form involving the
magnitudes of these vectors and the angle between them as
where are the magnitudes of the two vectors, and θ is the angle between
them. Notice that although can be negative or positive

depending on the angle between them. Further, if two non-zero vectors are
perpendicular, . From the formula above, it is also apparent that if we take
vector to be a unit vector, the dot product represents the component of
in the direction of . Thus the scalar product between two vectors is the product of
the magnitude of one vector with the magnitude of the component of the other vector
in its direction. Try to see it pictorially yourself. We also write the dot products of the
unit vectors along the x, y, and the z axes. These are and
.
Vector or cross product: In defining the scalar product above, we have used three
out of the nine possible products of the components of two vectors. From the six of
these that are left i.e. , if we define the
vector
This is known as the vector or cross product of the two vectors. By calling this
expression a vector, we implicitly mean that its component transform like those of a
vector. Let us again take the example of looking at the components of this quantity
from two frames rotated with respect to each other about the z-axis. In that case the x
component of the vector product in the rotated frame is
and the y component is
Thus we see that the components of the vector product defined above do indeed
transform like those of a vector. We leave it as an exercise to show that when the
other frame is obtained by rotating about the x and the y axes also, the transformation
of the components is like that of a vector. This is known as the vector or the cross
product of vectors and . It can also be written in the form of a determinant as
Notice that this is the only contribution that transforms in this manner. For example
does not transform like a vector; I leave it as an exercise for you to show. So this
cannot form a vector.
Now if we take the dot product of or with , the result is zero as is easy to
see. This implies that the vector product of two vectors is perpendicular to both of
them. As such an alternate expression for the vector product of is
where is a unit vector in the direction perpendicular to the plane formed by

in such a way that if the fingers of the right hand turn from to through
the smaller of the angle between them, the thumb gives the direction of in direction of
. It is also clear from this expression that the vector product of two non-zero vectors
will vanish if the vectors are parallel i.e. the angle between them is zero.
The vector product between two vectors is not commutative in that but
rather .
Geometric interpretation of cross product : The magnitude of the cross-product

, which is equal to , is the area of a parallelogram formed by
vectors . This is shown in figure 13.
Derivative of a vector: After reviewing the vector algebra, we would now like to
introduce you to the idea of differentiating a vector quantity. Here we take a vector
as depending on one parameter, say time t , and evaluate the derivative .
This is similar to what we do for a regular function. We evaluate the vector

at time (t+ Δt) , subtract from it, divide the difference by Δt and then take
the limit Δ t → 0 . This is shown in figure 14. Thus
The derivative is easily understood if we think in terms of its derivatives. If we write a

vector as
then the derivative of the vector is given as
Notice that only the components are differentiated, because the unit vectors
are fixed in space and therefore do not change with time. Later when we
learn about polar coordinates, we will encounter unit vectors which also change with
time. In that case when taking derivative of a vector, the components as well as the
unit vectors both have to be differentiated.
Using the definition above, it is easy to show that in differentiating the product of two
vectors, the usual chain rule can be applied. This gives
and
This pretty much sums up our introduction to vectors. I leave this lecture by giving you
three exercises.
1. Show that and that is the

volume of a parallelepiped formed by .
2. Show that can also be written as the determinant
1. Show that if the magnitude of a vector quantity is a fixed, its derivative

with respect to t will be perpendicular to it. Can you think of an everyday
example of this?
Lecture 3 : Equilibrium of bodies I
Lecture 3
Equilibrium of bodies I
In the previous lecture, we discussed three laws of motion and reviewed some basic aspects of
vector algebra. We are now going to apply these to understand equilibrium of bodies. In the static
part when we say that a body is in equilibrium, what we mean is that the body is not moving at all
even though there may be forces acting on it. (In general equilibrium means that there is no
acceleration i.e., the body is moving with constant velocity but in this special case we take this
constant to be zero).
Let us start by observing what all can a force do to a body? One obvious thing it does is to
accelerate a body. So if we take a point particle P and apply a force on it, it will accelerate. Thus if
we want its acceleration to be zero, the sum of all forces applied on it must vanish. This is the
condition for equilibrium of a point particle. So for a point particle the equilibrium condition is
where are the forces applied on the point particle (see figure 13)
That is all there is to the equilibrium of a point particle. But in engineering problems we deal not with
point particles but with extended objects. An example is a beam holding a load as shown in figure 2.
The beam is equilibrium under its own weight W , the load L and the forces that the supports S1 and
S2 apply on it.
To consider equilibrium of such extended bodies, we need to see the other effects that a force
produces on them. In these bodies, in addition to providing acceleration to the body, an applied
force has two more effects. One it tends to rotate the body and two it deforms the body. Thus a
beam put on two supports S1 and S2 tends to rotate clockwise about S2 when a force F is applied
downwards (figure 3).
The strength or ability of a force to rotate the body about a point O is given by the torque
generated by it. The torque is defined as the vector product of the displacement vector from O to
the point where the force is applied. Thus
This is also known as the moment of the force. Thus in figure 3 above, the torque about S2 will be
given by the distance from the support times the force and its direction will be into the plane of the
paper. From the way that the torque is defined, the torque in a given direction tends to rotate the
body on which it is applied in the plane perpendicular to the direction of the torque. Further, the
direction of rotation is obtained by aligning the thumb of one's right hand with the direction of the
torque; the fingers then show the way that the body tends to rotate (see figure 4). Notice that the
torque due to a force will vanish if the force is parallel to .
We now make a subtle point about the tendency of force to rotate a body. It is that even if the net
force applied on a body is zero, the torque generated by them may vanish i.e. the forces will not
give any acceleration to the body but would tend to rotate it. For example if we apply equal and
opposite forces at two ends of a rod, as shown in figure 5, the net force is zero but the rod still has a
tendency to rotate. So in considering equilibrium of bodies, we not only have to make sure that the
net force is zero but can also that the net torque is also zero.
A third possibility of the action by a force, which we have ignored above, and which is highly explicit
in the case of a mass on top of a spring, is that the force also deforms bodies. Thus in the case of a
beam under a force, the beam may deform in various ways: it may get compressed, it may get
elongated or may bend. A load on top of a spring obviously deforms it by a large amount. In the first
case we assume the deformation to be small and therefore negligible i.e., we assume that the
internal forces are so strong that they adjust so that there is no deformation by the applied external
force. This is known as treating the body as a rigid body. In this course, we are going to assume that
all bodies are rigid. So the third kind of action is not considered at all.
So now focus strictly on the equilibrium of rigid bodies: As stated, we are going to assume that
internal forces are so great that the body does not deform. The only conditions for equilibrium in
them are:
(1) The body should not accelerate/ should not move which, as discussed earlier, is ensured if
that is the sum of all forces acting on it must be zero no matter at what points on the
body they are applied. For example consider the beam in figure 2. Let the forces applied by the
supports S1 and S2 be F1 and F2, respectively. Then for equilibrium, it is required that
Assuming the direction towards the top of the page to be y-direction, this translates to
The condition is sufficient to make sure that the net force on the rod is zero. But as we learned
earlier, and also our everyday experience tells us that even a zero net force can give rise to a
turning of the rod. So F1 and F2 must be applied at such points that the net torque on the beam is
also zero. This is given below as the second rule for equilibrium.
(2) Summation of moment of forces about any point in the body is zero i.e. , where
is the torque due to the force about point O. One may ask at this point whether
should be taken about many different points or is it sufficient to take it about any one convenient
point. The answer is that any one convenient point is sufficient because if condition (1) above is
satisfied, i.e. net force on the body is zero then the torque as is independent of point about which it
is taken. We will prove it later.
These two conditions are both necessary and sufficient condition for equilibrium. That is all we need
to do to achieve equilibrium so in principle solving for equilibrium is quite easy and what we should
learn is how to apply these condition efficiently in different engineering situations. We are therefore
going to spend time on these topics individually.
We start with a few simple examples:
Example 1: A person is holding a 100N weight (that is roughly a 10kg mass) by a light weight
(negligible mass) rod AB. The rod is 1.5m long and weight is hanging at a distance of 1m from the
end A, which is on a table (see figure 6). How much force should the person apply to hold the
weight?
Let the normal reaction of the table on the rod be N and the force by the point be F1. Then the two
equilibrium conditions give
Example 2: As the second illustration we take the example of a lever that you may have used
sometime or the other. We are trying to lift a 1000N (~100kg mass) weight by putting a light weight
but strong rod as shown in the figure using the edge of a brick as the fulcrum. The height of the
brick is 6cm. The question we ask is: what is the value of the force applied in the vertical direction
that is needed to lift the weight? Assume the brick corner to be rough so that it provides frictional
force.
(Note: If the brick did not provide friction, the force applied cannot be only in the vertical direction as
that would not be sufficient to cancel the horizontal component of N). Let us see what happens if the
brick offered no friction and we applied a force in the vertical direction. The fulcrum applies a force N
perpendicular to the rod so if we apply only a vertical force, the rod will tend to slip to the left
because of the component of N in that direction. Try it out on a smooth corner and see that it does
happen. However, if the friction is there then the rod will not slip. Let us apply the equilibrium
conditions in such a situation. The balance of forces gives
Let us choose the fulcrum as the point about which we balance the torque. It gives
Then
The normal force and the frictional force can now be calculated with the other two equations
obtained above by the force balance equation.
In the example above, we have calculated the torques and have also used normal force applied on
a surface. We are going to encounter these quantities again and again in solving engineering
problems. So let us study each one of them in detail.
Torque due to a force: As discussed earlier, torque about a point due to a force is obtained as
the vector product
where is a vector from the point O to the point where the force is being applied. Actually could
be a vector from O to any point along the line of action of the force as we will see below. The
magnitude of the torque is given as
Thus the magnitude of torque is equal to the product of the magnitude of the force and the
perpendicular distance from O to the line of action of the force
as shown in figure 7 in the plane containing point O and the force vector. Since this distance is fixed,
the torque due to a force can be calculated by taking vector to be any vector from O to the line of
action of the force. The unit of a torque is Newton-meter or simply Nm.
Let us look at an example of this in 2 dimensions.
Example 3: Let there be a force of 20 N applied along the vector going from point (1,2) to point
(5,3). So the force can be written as its magnitude times the unit vector from (1,2) to (5,3). Thus
Torque can be calculated about O by taking to be either . As argued

above, the answer should be the same irrespective of which we choose. Let us see that. By
taking to be we get
On the other hand, with we get
Which is the same as that obtained with . Thus we see that the torque is the same no
matter where along the line of action is the force applied. This is known as the transmissibility of
the force. So we again write that
where is any vector from the origin to the line of action of the force.
If there are many forces applied on a body then the total moment about O is the vector sum of all
other moments i.e.
As a special case if the forces are all applied at the same point j then
This is known as Varignon's theorem. Its usefulness arises from the fact that the torque due to a
given force can be calculated as the sum of torques due to its components.
As would be clear to you from the discussion so far torque depends on the location of point O . If for
the same applied force, the torque is taken about a different point, the torque would come out to be
different. However, as mentioned earlier, there is one special case when the torque is independent
of the force applied and that is when the net force(vector sum of all forces) on the system is zero.
Let us prove that now: Consider the torque of a force being calculated about two different points O
and O' (figure 8).
The torques about O and O' and their difference is:
But from the figure above
Therefore
Now if the net force is zero, is zero and the difference between the torques about two
different points also vanishes. A particular example of the net force being zero is two equal
magnitude forces in directions opposite to each other and applied at a distance from one another, as
in figure 5 above and also shown in figure 9 below. This is known as a couple and the
corresponding torque with respect to any point is given as
where is a unit vector perpendicular to the forces coming out of the space between them and d is
the perpendicular distance between the forces (see figure 9).
Since the net force due to a couple is zero, the only action a couple has on a body is to tend to
rotate it. Further the moment of a couple is independent of the origin, and so it can be applied
anywhere on the body and it will have the same effect on the body. We can even change the
magnitude of the force and alter the distance between them keeping the magnitude of the couple
the same. Then also the effect of couple will be the same. Such vectors whose effect remains
unchanged irrespective of where they are applied are known as free vectors. Free vectors have a
nice property that they can be added irrespective of where they are applied without changing the
effect they produce. Thus a couple is a free vector (Is force a free vector?). It is represented by the
symbols
with the arrows clearly giving the sense of rotation. Keep in mind though that the direction of the
couple (in the vector sense) is perpendicular to the plane in which the forces forming the couple are.
Next we focus on the moment of a force about an axis.
Moment of force about an axis: So far we have talked about moment of a force about a point only.
However, many a times a body rotates about an axis. This is the situations you have bean studying
in you 12th grade. For example a disc rotating about an axis fixed in two fixed ball bearings. In this
case what affects the rotation is the component of the torque along the axis, where the torque is
taken about a point O (the point can be chosen arbitrarily) on the axis as given in figure 11. Thus
where is the unit vector along the axis direction and is the vector from point O on the axis to
the force .
Using vector identities (exercise at the end of Lecture 1), it can also be written as
Thus the moment of a force about an axis is the magnitude of the component of the force in the
plane perpendicular to the axis times its perpendicular distance from the axis. Thus if a force is
pointing towards the axis, the torque generated by this force about the axis would be zero. This can
be understood as follows. When a force is applied, forces are generated at the ends of the axis
being held on a one place. These forces together with generate the torque when components
along the axis by responsible for rotation of the body about the axis, in the same manner, the couple
about the axis is given by the component of the couple moment in the direction for the axis. You can
work it out; it is actually equal to the component of the force in the plane perpendicular to the axis
times the distance of the force line of action from the axis. One point about the moment about
an axis, it is independent of the origin since it depends only on the distance of the force the axis.
As an example let us consider a disc of radius 30 cm with its axis along the z-axis and its centre at
z=0. Let a force act on it at the point on the disc. We now
find its moment about its axis. The axis has . We take the origin at the centre of the disc to
calculate
Therefore the torque about the z-axis is
Thus the torque about the axis is in the negative z direction which means that it would tend to rotate
the disc clockwise.
Let us now see if it fits with our conventional way of calculating torque of a force about an axis. For
the force the z-component of the force will not give any torque about the z-
axis because it cannot rotate the body about the z-axis. So the only component of the force that
gives torque about the z-axis is that acts on the point as shown in figure 12. The
magnitude of this force is .
The equation of line along which the force acts is
To find the perpendicular distance of this line from the origin, we consider a line perpendicular to this
line passing through the origin and consider the point where it intersects with
. The perpendicular line is
Solving for the intersection point we get
which gives the perpendicular distance of the line of force from the centre to be
Then torque about z-axis therefore is therefore clockwise, which
is the same as obtained that earlier. I would like you to notice that even in this simple example using
vector algebra makes life quite easy.
Let us summarize this lecture by summarizing what we have learnt:
(1) For equilibrium of a body
are necessary and sufficient conditions.
(2) The torque about a point due to forces applied on a body, is an
origin dependent quantity but for special case of it is origin independent.
(3) A particular case of is a couple moment when two forces are equal &
opposite and are separated by distance d . The couple moment is .
(4) Torque about an axis is given by it component along the axis. Thus y and axis is
along direction.
(5)
Lecture 4 : Equilibrium of bodies II
Lecture 4
Equilibrium of bodies II
In the previous lecture we have defined a couple moment. With this definition, we can now represent a
force applied on a body pivoted at a point as the sum of the same force on it at the pivot and a
couple acting on it. This is shown in figure 1. Thus if the bar shown in figure 1 is in equilibrium, the
pivot must be applying a force and a counter couple moment on it.
To see the equivalence, let us take the example above and add a zero force to the system at the pivot
point. This does not really change the force applied on the system. However, the trick is to take this
zero force to be made up of forces and as shown in figure 2. Now the original force and
at the pivot are separated by distance d and therefore form a couple moment of magnitude Fd .
In addition there is a force on the body at the pivot point. The combination is therefore a force at
the pivot point P and a couple moment . Notice that I am not saying about the pivot. This is
because a couple is a free vector and its effect is the same no matter at which point it is specified.
Example: You must have seen the gear shift handle in old buses. It is of Zigzag shape. Let it be of the
shape shown in figure 3: 60cm at an angle of 45° from the x-axis, 30cm parallel to x-axis and then
30cm again at 45° from the x-axis, all in the x-y plane shown in figure 3. To change gear a driver
applies a force of on the head of the handle. We want to know what is the
equivalent force and moment at the bottom i.e., at the origin of the handle.
For this again we can apply a zero force i.e., ( and ) at the bottom so that original force and
give a couple moment
Thus equivalent force system is a force at the bottom and a couple equal to
Nm.
Having obtained equivalent force systems, next we wish to discuss what kind of forces and moments
do different elements used in engineering mechanics apply on other elements.
Lecture 4 : Equilibrium of bodies II
Forces and couples generated by various elements: As we solve engineering problems, we

come across many different elements that are used in engineering structures. We discuss some of
them below focusing our attention on what kind of forces and torques do they give rise to.
The simplest element is a string that can apply a tension. However a string can only pull by the
tension generated in it but not push. For example, a string holding a weight W will develop a tension
T = W in it so that the net force on the weight is a tension T pulling the weight up and weight W
pulling it down. Thus if the weight is in equilibrium, T = W . This is shown in figure 4.
The second kind of force that is applied when two elements come in contact is that applied by a
surface. A smooth surface always applies a force normal to itself. The forces on a rod and on a box
applied by the surface are shown in figure 5. Thus as far as the equilibrium is concerned, for an
object on a smooth surface, the surface is equivalent to a force normal to it.
Imagine what would have happened had the force by the surface not been normal. Then an object
put on a surface would start moving along the surface because of the component of the force along
the surface. By the same argument if there is a smooth surface near an edge, the force on the
surface due to the edge (and by Newton's IIIrd law the force on the edge due to the surface) will be
normal to the surface. See figure 6.
On the other hand if the surface is not smooth, it is then capable of applying a force along the
surface also. This force is due to friction.
Let us now solve the well known example of a roller of radius r being pulled over a step as shown in
figure 7. The height of the step is h. What is minimum force F required if the roller is pulled in the
direction shown and is about to roll over the step. What are the normal and frictional forces at that
instant?
When the roller is about to roll over the step, there will be no normal reaction from the lower surface
and therefore the roller will be under equilibrium under the influence of its weight W, the applied
force F and the normal reaction N and the frictional force f applied by the edge of the step. To
calculate the force F, we apply the torque equation about the edge to get
To find N and f we apply the force equation
That can be written in the component form a
Let us look at these equations.
Solving these equations gives
So in this situation, we do not require friction to keep the roller in equilibrium. On the other hand
recall the problem in the previous lecture when we were trying to lift a 1000Nt weights by putting a
rod on a brick edge. In that case we did require friction.
Next we consider a hinge about when an object can rotate freely. A hinge can apply a force in any
direction. Thus it can apply (figure 8a) any force in X-direction and any amount of force in Y-
direction but no couple.
To see an example, imagine lifting a train berth by pulling it horizontally. We wish to know at what
angle θ from the horizontal will the berth come to equilibrium if we pull it out by a horizontal force F
and what are the forces apply by the hinges (figure 8b).
Let the weight of the berth be W and its width l. Let the forces applied by the hinges be FH in the
horizontal direction and FV in the vertical direction. By equilibrium conditions
where the negative sign for FH implies that it is in the direction opposite to that assumed.
Similarly
To find the angle we apply the moment or torque balance equation about the hinges. Weight W
gives a counter clockwise torque of and the force F gives a clockwise torque of Fl sin?
I should point put that if the hinge is not freely moving (for example due to friction) then it can
produce a moment (couple) that will oppose any tendency to rotate and will have to be taken into
account while considering the torque balance equation.
Next we look at a built in or fixed support as shown in the figure.
Let us analyze what happens in these cases when a load is applied. Let us look at the built-in
support.
As the load is put on, the beam will tend to move down on the right side pushing the inner side up.
This will generate reaction forces as shown schematically in figure 10. The generated forces can be
replaced by a couple and a net force either about point A or B as follows (see figure 11). Add zero
force N1 -N1 at point A then the original N1 and -N1 give a couple and no force and there is a net
force ( N1 -N2) at A.
We could instead have added a zero force N2 - N2 at B and then would have obtained an equivalent
system with a different couple moment than the previous case and a net force (N1 - N2) at B. I leave
this for you to see. You may be wondering by now at which exactly does the force really act and
what is the value of the couple. Actually in the present case the two unequal forces act on the beam
so the torque provided by them is not independent of the point about which it is take. In such cases,
as we will learn in the later lectures, the force effectively acts at the centroid of the force and the
couple moment is equal to the torque evaluated about the centroid. In any case we can say that a
built-in support provides a couple and a force. We give the schematic picture above only to motivate
how the forces and the couple are generated. In reality the forces are going to be distributed over
the entire portion of the support that is inside the wall and it is this distribution of force that provides
a net force at the centroid and a couple equal to the torque calculated about the centroid, as we will
see in later lectures. Note that deeper the support is fixed into a wall, larger would be the couple
provided by it. Hence whereas to hang a light photo-frame or a painting on a wall a small nail would
suffice, a longer nail would be better if the frame is heavy. In addition to providing a force
perpendicular to the support and a couple, a fixed support also provides a force in the direction
parallel to itself. Thus if you try to pull out the support or try to push it in, it does not move easily. The
forces and couple provided by a fixed support are therefore as shown in figure 12.
Let us now look at the support welded/ glued to the well. In that case suppose we put a load W at
the end of the beam, you will see that the forces generated will be as shown below in figure 13.
where in this particular case the horizontal forces must be equal so as to satisfy
Thus the horizontal forces provide a couple and the beam can be said to provide a couple a force in
the direction perpendicular to the support. Further a glued support also cannot be pulled out or
pushed in. Therefore it too is capable of providing a horizontal nonzero reaction force. Thus a
welded or glued support can also be represented as shown in figure 12. Note that wider the support,
larger moment it is capable of providing. Let us now solve an example of this.
Example: You must have seen gates being supported on two supports (see figure 14). Suppose the
weight of the gate is W and its width b. The supports are protruding out of the wall by a and the
distance between them is h. If the weight of the gate is supported fully by the lower support, find the
horizontal forces, vertical forces and the moment load on both the supports.
To solve this problem, let us first find out what are the forces required to keep the gate in balance.
The forces applied by the supports on the gate are shown in figure 14. Since the weight of the gate
is fully supported on the lower support all the vertical force is going to be provided by the lower
support only. Thus
Similarly
To find, , let us take moment about point A or B
Let us make . This gives (following the convention that counterclockwise torque is
positive and clockwise torque is negative)
The negative sign for FX2 means that the force's direction is opposite to what it was taken to be in
figure 14. We also wish to find the forces and couple on the support. By Newton 's IIIrd Law, forces
on the support are opposite to those on the gate. Thus the forces on the two supports are:
You see that support A is being pulled out whereas support B is being pushed in (we observe an
effect of this at our houses all the time: the upper hinges holding a door tend to come out of the
doorjamb). Now the force by the wall on support A will be to the right to keep it fixed in its
place. On the other hand the situation for the lower support is more involved. The lower support will
be kept in its place by the wall providing it horizontal and vertical forces and a torque. The net
horizontal force is to the left and the net vertical force is W pointing up. The lower support
also balances a torque. Taking the torques about the point where it enters the wall, its value comes
out to be
If we assume that the net vertical force and the torque is provided by only two reaction forces at two
points as in figure 10, these two reaction forces can be calculated easily if we know the length of the
portion inside the wall. I leave it as an exercise. In solving this, you will notice that the reaction
forces are smaller if the support is deeper inside the wall. As pointed out earlier, in reality the force
is going to be distributed over the entire portion of the support inside the wall. So a more realistic
calculation is a little more involved.
To summarize this lecture, we have looked at some simple engineering elements and have outlined
what kind of forces and torques are they capable of applying. In the next lecture we are going
discuss forces in three dimensions. We are also going to look at conditions that forces with certain
geometric relations should satisfy for providing equilibrium.
Lecture 5 : Equilibrium of bodies III
Lecture 5
Equilibrium of bodies III
In the previous lecture I have been talking about equilibrium in a plane. We now move on to three
dimensional (3-d) cases. In three dimensional cases the equilibrium conditions lead to balance
along all three axes. Then
We now have to take care of components of forces and torque in all three dimensions. The
engineering elements that we considered earlier are now considered as 3-d case. Thus consider a
ball-socket joint in which a ball is supported in a socket (figure 1).
A ball-socket joint provides reaction forces Nx, Ny and Nz in all three directions (figure 1) but it
cannot apply any torque. This is a little like a hinge joint in 2d . Let me solve an example using such
a joint.
Example 1: To balance a heavy weight of 5000 N, two persons dig a hole in the ground and put a
pole of length l in it so that the hole acts as a socket. The pole makes an angle of 30° from the
ground. The weight is tied at the mid point of the pole and the pole is pulled by two horizontal ropes
tied at its ends as shown in figure 2. Find the tension in the two ropes and the reaction forces of the
ground on the pole.
To solve this problem, let me first choose a co-ordinate system. I choose it so that the pole is over
the y-axis in the (y-z) plane (see figure 2).
The ropes are in (xy) direction with tension T in each one of them so that tension in each is written
as
You may be wondering why I have taken the tension to be the same in the two ropes. Actually it
arises from the torque balance equation; if the tensions were not equal, their component in the x-
direction will give a nonzero torque.
Let the normal reaction of the ground be (Nx , Ny , Nz). Then the force balance equation gives
Taking torque about point O and equating it to zero, we get
which gives
Next, if I consider a fixed connection, say in a wall, it is capable of providing force along all the three
axes and also of providing torques about the three axes, Thus in 3-d it will be represented as shown
in figure 3.
This is a generalization of the fixed or welded/glued support in 2-d . How are these torques etc.
generated? Recall what I did for a fixed support in 2-d and carry out a similar analysis in 3-d.
Hopefully by the analysis carried out so far, you would be able to recognize what all reactions a
given element of a mechanical system can provide. For example look at the support shown in figure
4 where the shaft can not move through the hole in the fixed block, but it is free to rotate. Can you
tell the reaction forces and torques that this support provides?
Having discussed the elements that apply different kinds of forces, let us look at some situations
there due to the geometry of forces applied, some of the equilibrium equations are automatically
satisfied. If we recognize this, it saves us from doing extra calculations involving that particular
condition.
If all forces are concurrent at a point (see figure 5), i.e., they all cross each other at one point O
then torques of all the forces is identically zero about O . Thus the only equilibrium condition is
Recall that if the sum of all forces on a system is zero, torque is independent of the origin. Thus
although in the beginning I used the fact that torque about the point of concurrence is zero, it is true
about any point once the force equation for equilibrium is satisfied.
Next consider the case when all forces intersect one particular line, call it the z-axis without any
loss of generality (see figure 6).
Using transmissibility of the force, in this case we can take the force to be acting at
point Then the torque due to all these forces will be
Thus the Z component of the torque is automatically zero. In general when the forces intersect a
line, the torque component along that line vanishes. Under these circumstances, if we take that line
to be the z-axis, the equilibrium conditions are
Next I discuss what happens if all the applied forces are parallel, say to the Z axis. Then the forces
do not have any x or y components. Further, by the z-component of the torque also vanishes (left as
an exercise for you to show). The equilibrium conditions in this case reduce to
In general of course we have all the six condition.
Lecture 5 : Equilibrium of bodies III
Let me now summarize what all you have learnt so far in considering the equilibrium of engineering
structures. In the process I also introduce you to a term called the Free Body Diagram. I have
actually been using it without calling it so. Now, let us formalize it.
In talking about the equilibrium of a body we consider all the external forces applied on it and the
interaction of the body with other objects around it. This interaction produces more forces and
torques on the body. Thus when we single out a body in equilibrium, objects like hinges, ball-socket
joint, fixed supports around it are replaced elements by the corresponding forces & torques that they
generate. This is what is called a free-body diagram. Making a free-body diagram allows us to focus
our attention only on the information relevant to the equilibrium of the body, leaving out unnecessary
details. Thus making a free-body diagram is pretty much like Arjuna - when asked to take an aim on
the eye of a bird - seeing only the eye and nothing else. The diagrams made on the right side of
figures 1, 2 and 3 are all free-body diagrams.
In the coming lecture we will be applying the techniques learnt so far to a very special structure
called the truss. To prepare you for that, in the following I consider the special case of a system in
equilibrium under only two forces. For completeness I will also take up equilibrium under three
forces.
When only two forces are applied, no matter what the shape or the size of the object in equilibrium
is, the forces must act along the same line, in directions opposite to each other, and their
magnitudes must be the same. That the forces act in directions opposite to each other and have
equal magnitude follows from the equilibrium conditions , which implies that
. Further, if the forces are not along the same line then they will form a couple that will tend to rotate
the body. Thus implies that the forces act along the same line, i.e. they be collinear (see
figure 7).
Similarly if there are three forces acting on a body that is in equilibrium then the three forces must
be in the same plane and concurrent. If there are not concurrent then they must be parallel (of
course remaining in the same plane). This can be understood as follows. Any two members of the
three applied forces form a plane. If the third force is not in the same plane, it will have a non-
vanishing component perpendicular to the plane; and that component does not get cancelled. Thus
unless all three forces are in the same plane, they cannot add up to zero. So to satisfy the equation
, the forces must be in the same plane, i.e. they must be coplanar. For equilibrium the
torque about any point must also be zero. Since the forces are in the same plane, any two of them
will intersect at a certain point O. These two forces will also have zero moment about O. If the third
force does not pass through O, it will give a non-vanishing torque (see figure 8). So to satisfy the
torque equation, the forces have to be concurrent. Zero torque condition can also be satisfied if the
three forces are parallel forces (see figure 8); that is the other possibility for equilibrium under three
forces.
In the end, I now discuss one more concept about equilibrium of bodies, that of statical
determinacy . Along the way I also introduce some connected concepts like constraints, degree of
redundancy and redundant support. On constraints, I will discuss more in the lecture on Method of
virtual work.
To introduce the terms used above, I consider a rod of length l and weight W held at a pin-joint on a
floor at a distance of a from a wall, on which its other end is. This is shown in figure 9 along with the
free-body diagram of the rod.
There are three unknowns - Rx, Ry and N - in the problem and three equations of equilibrium that
will determine the unknowns. Specifically:
Taking moment about the pin, we get
This gives
In this case, the constraints or the external supports we apply are just sufficient to keep the system
in equilibrium. Such systems are known as statically determinate systems. Now suppose we apply
one more support. Let us support the rod at both ends by pin joints. The free-body diagram will then
look like that shown in figure 10.
Now the pin on top end is also applying a force on the rod. Thus the equations of equilibrium read
as
The situation on hand is that we have four unknowns - Rx, Ry, Nx and Ny - and only three
equations. Thus one of the unknown cannot be determined. In particular only is
known and what are individual cannot be determined unless some additional
information is also given. Such systems are known as statically indeterminate systems. In such
systems we are applying more constraints than are needed to keep the system in equilibrium. Even
if we remove one of the constraints - in this case replace the upper pin by a plane surface - the
system is capable of remaining in equilibrium. Such supports that can be removed without disturbing
the equilibrium are known as redundant supports. And the number of redundant supports is the
degree of statical indeterminacy .
After introducing you to the concepts discussed above, we will be studying trusses in the next
lecture.
Lecture 6 : Trusses
Lecture 6
Trusses
Having set up the basics for studying equilibrium of bodies, we are now ready to discuss the trusses
that are used in making stable load-bearing structures. The examples of these are the sides of the
bridges or tall TV towers or towers that carry electricity wires. Schematic diagram of a structure on
the side of a bridge is drawn in figure 1.
The structure shown in figure 1 is essentially a two-dimensional structure. This is known as a plane
truss. On the other hand, a microwave or mobile phone tower is a three-dimensional structure. Thus
there are two categories of trusses - Plane trusses like on the sides of a bridge and space trusses
like the TV towers. In this course, we will be concentrating on plane trusses in which the basis
elements are stuck together in a plane.
To motivate the structure of a plane truss, let me take a slender rod (12) between points 1 and 2 and
attach it to a fixed pin joint at 1 (see figure 2).
Now I put a pin (pin2) at point 2 at the upper end and hang a weight W on it. The question is if we
want to hold the weight at that point, what other minimum supports should we provide? For rods we
are to make only pin joints (We assume everything is in this plane and the structures does not
topple side ways). Since rod (12) tends to turn clockwise, we stop the rightward movement of point
2 by connecting a rod (23) on it and then stop point 3 from moving to the right by connecting it to
point 1 by another rod (13). All the joints in this structure are pin joints. However, despite all this the
entire structure still has a tendency to turn to turn clockwise because there is a torque on it due to
W. To counter this, we attach a wheel on point 3 and put it on the ground. This is the bare minimum
that we require to hold the weight is place. The triangle made by rods forms the basis of a plane
truss.
Note: One may ask at this point as to why as we need the horizontal rod (13). It is because point 3
will otherwise keep moving to the right making the whole structure unstable. Rod (13) has two
forces acting on it: one vertical force due to the wheel and the other at end 2. However these two
forces cannot be collinear so without the rod (13) the system will not be in equilibrium. Generally, in
a truss each joint must be connected to at least three rods or two rods and one external support.
Let us now analyze forces in the structure that just formed. For simplicity I take the lengths of all
rods to be equal. To get the forces I look at all the forces on each pin and find conditions under
which the pins are in equilibrium. The first thing we note that each rod in equilibrium under the
influence of two forces applied by the pins at their ends. As I discussed in the previous lecture, in
this situation the forces have to be collinear and therefore along the rods only. Thus each rod is
under a tensile or compressive force. Thus rods (12), (23) and (13) experience forces as shown in
figure 3.
Notice that we have taken all the forces to be compressive. If the actual forces are tensile, the
answer will come out to be negative. Let us now look at pin 2. The only forces acting on pin 2 are
F12 due to rod (12) and F23 due to rod (23). Further, it is pulled down by the weight W. Thus forces
acting on pin 2 look like shown in figure 4.
Applying equilibrium condition to pin (2) gives
Let us now look at pin 3 (see figure 4). It is in equilibrium under forces F23, normal reaction N and a
horizontal force F13.
Applying equilibrium condition gives
Since the direction of F13 is coming out to be negative, the direction should be opposite to that
assumed. Balance of forces in the vertical direction gives
Thus we see that the weight is held with these three rods. The structure is determinate and it holds
the weight in place.
Even if we replace the pin joints by a small plate (known as gusset plate) with two or three pins in
these, the analysis remains pretty much the same because the pins are so close together that they
hardly create any moment about the joints. Even if the rods are welded together at the joints, to a
great degree of accuracy most of the force is carried longitudinally on the rods, although some very
small (negligible) moment is created by the joints and may be by possible bending of the rods.
Now we are ready to build a truss and analyze it. We are going to build it by adding more and more
of triangles together. As you can see, when we add these triangles, the member of joints j and the
number of members (rods) m are related as follows:
m = 2j - 3
This makes a truss statically determinate. This is easily understood as follows. First consider the
entire truss as one system. If it is to be statically determinate, there should be only three unknown
forces on it because for forces in a plane there are three equilibrium conditions. Fixing one of its
ends a pin joint and putting the other one on a roller does that (roller also gives the additional
advantage that it can help in adjusting any change in the length of a member due to deformations).
If we wish to determine these external forces and the force in each member of the truss, the total
number of unknowns becomes m + 3. We solve for these unknowns by writing equilibrium
conditions for each pin; there will be 2j such equations. For the system to be determinate we should
have m + 3 = 2j , which is the condition given above. If we add any more members, these are
redundant. On the other hand, less number of members will make the truss unstable and it will
collapse when loaded. This will happen because the truss will not be able to provide the required
number of forces for all equilibrium conditions to be satisfied. Statically determinate trusses are
known as simple trusses.
Lecture 6 : Trusses
Exercise 1: Shown in figure 5 are three commonly used trusses on the sides of bridges. Show that
all three of them are simple trusses.
You may ask why we put trusses on bridges. As our later analysis will show they distribute the load
over all elements and thereby making the bridge stronger.
We now wish to obtain the forces generated in various arms of a truss when it is loaded externally.
This is done under the following assumptions:
1. If the middle line of the members of a truss meet at a point that point is taken as a pin joint.
This is a very god assumption because as we have seen earlier while introducing a truss
(triangle with pin joint), the load is transferred on to other member of the trusses so that
forces remain essentially collinear with the member.
2. All external loads are applied on pin connections.
3. All members' weight is equally divided on connecting pins.
There are two methods of determining forces in the members of a truss - Method of joints and
method of sections. We start with the method of joints:
Method of joints: In method of joints, we look at the equilibrium of the pin at the joints. Since the
forces are concurrent at the pin, there is no moment equation and only two equations for equilibrium
viz. . Therefore we start our analysis at a point where one known load
and at most two unknown forces are there. The weight of each member is divided into two halves
and that is supported by each pin. To an extent, we have already alluded to this method while
introducing trusses. Let us illustrate it by two examples.
Example 1: As the first example, I take truss ABCDEF as shown in figure 6 and load it at point E by
5000N. The length of small members of the truss is 4m and that of the diagonal members is
m. I will now find the forces in each member of this truss assuming them to be weightless.
We take each point to be a pin joint and start balancing forces on each of the pins. Since pin E has
an external load of 5000N one may want to start from there. However, E point has more than 2
unknown forces so we cannot start at E. We therefore first treat the truss as a whole and find
reactions of ground at points A and D because then at points A and D their will remain only two
unknown forces. The horizontal reaction Nx at point A is zero because there is no external
horizontal force on the system. To find N2 I take moment about A to get
which through equation gives
In method of joints, let us now start at pin A and balance the various forces. We already anticipate
the direction and show their approximately at A (figure 7). All the angles that the diagonals make are
45° .
The only equations we now have worry about are the force balance equations.
Keep in mind that the force on the member AB and AF going to be opposite to the forces on the pin
( Newton 's IIIrd law). Therefore force on member AB is compressive (pushes pin A away) whereas
that on AF is tensile (pulls A towards itself).
Next I consider joint F where force AF is known and two forces BF and FE are unknown. For pint F
Next I go to point B since now there are only two unknown forces there. At point B
Negative sign shows that whereas we have shown FBE to be compressive, it is actually tensile.
Next I consider point C and balance the forces there. I have already anticipated the direction of the
forces and shown FCE to be tensile whereas FCD to be compressive
Next I go to pin D where the normal reaction is N and balance forces there.
Thus forces in various members of the truss have been determined. They are
You may be wondering how we got all the forces without using equations at all joints. Recall that is
how we had obtained the statical determinacy condition. We did not have to use all joints because
already we had treated the system as a whole and had gotten two equations from there. So one
joint - in this case E - does not have to be analyzed. However, given that the truss is statically
determinate, all these forces must balance at point E, where the load has been applied, also. I will
leave this as an exercise for you. Next I ask how the situation would change if each member of the
truss had weight. Suppose each members weighs 500N, then assuming that the load is divided
equally between two pins holding the member the loading of the truss would appear as given in
figure 8 (loading due to the weight as shown in red). Except at points A and D the loading due to the
weight is 750N; at the A and D points it is 500N.
Now the external reaction at each end will be.
The extra 2000N can be calculated either from the moment equation or straightaway by realizing
that the new added weight is perfectly symmetric about the centre of the truss and therefore will be
equally divided between the two supports. For balancing forces at other pins, we follow the same
procedure as above, keeping in mind though that each pin now has an external loading due to the
weight of each member. I'll solve for forces in some member of the truss. Looking at pin A, we get
Next we move to point F and see that the forces are
One can similarly solve for other pins in the truss and I leave that as an exercise for you.
Having demonstrated to you the method of joints, we now move on to see the method of sections
that directly gives the force on a desired member of the truss.
Lecture 6 : Trusses
Method of sections : As the name suggests in method of sections we make sections through a
truss and then calculate the force in the members of the truss though which the cut is made. For
example, if I take the problem we just solved in the method of joints and make a section S1, S2 (see
figure 9), we will be able to determine the forces in members BC, BE and FE by considering the
equilibrium of the portion to the left or the right of the section.
Let me now illustrate this. As in the method of joints, we start by first determining the reactions at
the external support of the truss by considering it as a whole rigid body. In the present particular
case, this gives N at D and N at A. Now let us consider the section of the truss on
the left (see figure 10).
Since this entire section is in equilibrium, . Notice that we are

now using all three equations for equilibrium since the forces in individual members are not
concurrent. The direction of force in each member, one can pretty much guess by inspection. Thus
the force in the section of members BE must be pointing down because there is no other member
that can give a downward force to counterbalance N reaction at A. This clearly tells us that F
BE is tensile. Similarly, to counter the torque about B generated by N force at A, the force on
FE should also be from F to E. Thus this force is also tensile. If we next consider the balance of
torque about A, N and FFE do not give any torque about A. So to counter torque generated by
FBE , the force on BC must act towards B, thereby making the force compressive.
Let us now calculate individual forces. FFE is easiest to calculate. For this we take the moment
about B. This gives
4× = 4 × F FE
F FE = N
Next we calculate FBE . For this, we use the equation . It gives
Finally to calculate FBC , we can use either the equation about A or
Thus we have determined forces in these three members directly without calculating forces going
from one joint to another joint and have saved a lot of time and effort in the process. The forces on
the right section will be opposite to those on the left sections at points through which the section is
cut. This can be used to check our answer, and I leave it as an exercise for you.
After this illustration let me put down the steps that are taken to solve for forces in members of a
truss by method of sections:
1. Make a cut to divide the truss into section, passing the cut through members where the force
is needed.
2. Make the cut through three member of a truss because with three equilibrium equations viz.
we can solve for a maximum of three forces.
3. Apply equilibrium conditions and solve for the desired forces.
In applying method of sections, ingenuity lies in making a proper. The method after a way of directly
calculating desired force circumventing the hard work involved in applying the method of joints
where one must solve for each joint.
We thus conclude one lecture or trusses. Next step in making the treatment accurate is obviously to
take care of deformation in the members of a truss. This will be done in an advanced course later.
Lecture 7 : Friction
Lecture 7
Friction
Whatever we have studied so far, we have always taken the force applied by one surface on an object to
be normal to the surface. In doing so, we have been making an approximation i.e., we have been
neglecting a very important force viz., the frictional force. In this lecture we look at the frictional force in
various situations.
In this lecture when we talk about friction, we would mean frictional force between two dry surfaces. This
is known as Coulomb friction. Frictional forces also exist when there is a thin film of liquid between two
surfaces or within a liquid itself. This is known as the viscous force. We will not be talking about such
forces and will focus our attention on Coulomb friction i.e., frictional forces between two dry surfaces only.
Frictional force always opposes the motion or tendency of an object to move against another object or
against a surface. We distinguish between two kinds of frictional forces - static and kinetic - because it is
observed that kinetic frictional force is slightly less than maximum static frictional force.
Let us now perform the following experiment. Put a block on a rough surface and pull it by a force F (see
figure 1). Since the force F has a tendency to move the block, the frictional force acts in the opposite
direction and opposes the applied force F. All the forces acting on the block are shown in figure 1. Note
that I have shown the weight and the normal reaction acting at two different points on the block. I leave it
for you to think why should the weight and the normal reaction not act along the same vertical line?
It is observed that the block does not move until the applied force F reaches a maximum value Fmax. Thus
from F = 0 up to F = Fmax, the frictional force adjusts itself so that it is just sufficient to stop the motion. It
was observed by Coulombs that F max is proportional to the normal reaction of the surface on the object.
You can observe all this while trying to push a table across the room; heavier the table, larger the push
required to move it. Thus we can write
where µs is known as the coefficient of static friction. It should be emphasize again that is the maximum
possible value of frictional force, applicable when the object is about to stop, otherwise frictional force
could be less than, just sufficient to prevent motion. We also note that frictional force is independent of the
area of contact and depends only on N .
As the applied force F goes beyond F , the body starts moving now experience slightly less force
compound to. This force is seem to be when is known as the coefficient of kinetic friction. At low velocities
it is a constant but decrease slightly at high velocities. A schematic plot of frictional force F as a function of
the applied force is as shown in figure 2.
Values of frictional coefficients for different materials vary from almost zero (ice on ice) to as large as 0.9
(rubber tire on cemented road) always remaining less than 1.
A quick way of estimating the value of static friction is to look at the motion an object on an inclined plane.
Its free-body diagram is given in figure 3.
Since the block has a tendency to slide down, the frictional force points up the inclined plane. As long as
the block is in equilibrium
As θ is increased, mgsinθ increases and when it goes past the maximum possible value of friction fmax the
block starts sliding down. Thus at the angle at which it slides down we have
Lecture 7 : Friction
Let us now solve a couple of simple standard examples involving static friction/kinetic friction.
Example 1: A 50kg block is on an inclined plane of 30°. The coefficient of static friction between the
block and the plane is 0.3. We wish to determine the range of m under the block will be in
equilibrium (see figure 4).
The very first question that we address first is: why is there a range of m ? It is because of the
friction. If friction were absent, there is only one value of m , , that will balance the
50kg mass. On the other hand, friction can adjust itself according to the kind of motion; it can even
change direction depending upon which way is the 50kg block slipping. Thus when friction is
present, there is range of m , starting from when the 50kg block has a tendency to slide down the
ramp to when m pulls it up the ramp. Let us calculate these values. We first take the case when the
50kg block is about to slide down the ramp. At that point, the friction will be pointing up with its
magnitude at its maximum value. In that case the free body diagram of 50kg block is as follows.
A reminder here that a free body diagram is the one where we isolate a body and replace all other
elements in contact with it by the forces they apply on the body. Thus the ramp surface is replaced
by its normal reaction N, and the frictional force (max) µN, and the string attached with m is
replaced by the corresponding tension T in it. We reiterate that we have taken the direction of up the
ramp because we have assumed the block to be sliding down and we have taken the friction at its
maximum possible value. This gives us the smallest possible mass m .
Taking directions along the ramp to be the x-direction and that perpendicular to it to be the y-
direction gives
50g sin30 = T + µ N
Similarly gives
N = 50g sin30
To get T, we apply the force balance equation to mass m to get
T = mg
Solving these equations with g = 10ms -2 gives
m = 7.68kg.
Now as we start increasing m, the frictional force would become smaller and smaller than its
maximum value µN , eventually changing direction and increasing up to in the µN in the opposite
direction. The free body diagram of 50 kg block will then look like (note that the direction of friction is
opposite to that in figure 5) figure 6.
Then (taking the x-axis along the ramp) implies that
T = 50g sin30 + µN
The other two equations remain the same as in the previous case. Solution of these equations gives
m = 42.32kg
Thus we see that due to friction, there is a range of mass m from 7.68 kg to 42.32 kg that can
balance the 50 kg weight on the ramp; for all the values of m between the values determined above,
the frictional force will be less than its maximum value. I leave this example by asking you: at what
value of m will the frictional force be zero?
We now take certain specific example of friction viz. rotation of a solid cylinder against a dry surface;
this is known as dry thrust waving. We then discuss the case of belt friction and finally the square
screw thread and the screw jack. In these discussions we closely follow the book by Shames on
Engineering Mechanics.
Example 2: Let us first take the case of a cylinder of radiation R and mass m kept vertically on a
rough surface. It is to be rotated about the vertical by applying a torque T. We wish to calculate T
when the cylinder is about to rotate. Or in other words what is value of maximum T so that the
cylinder does not rotate see figure 7). The coefficient of friction between the cylinder and the surface
is µ.
In this example, we will have to consider the torque generated by friction. To do this, let us consider
a ring of radius r and thickness 'dr' and see how much frictional force does this experience (see
figure 8)?
If we assume the normal reaction to be evenly distributed, then normal reaction on the ring is
The frictional force on it at radius r is therefore
And the torque due to this friction is therefore
That is the maximum torque that can be tolerated against friction. Of course we have assumed in
this derivation that the weight of the cylinder is evenly distributed. If the weight is concentrated more
towards the centre, T would be less and it would be more if the weight is more towards the
periphery. The next example that we take is that of a block on a ramp again.
Example 3: A block of mass 100 kg is on a ramp of angle 30°. We wish to determine the magnitude
and direction of the frictional force for the applied force F = 600N, F = 500N and F = 100N .
This is a problem where we do not know a priori whether the block will be
moving up or down the plane or whether it will have a tendency to move up or down the plane. So
while solving we have to keep it mind :
1. Whether the block will remain stationary or move.

2. Which way does the block have tendency to move or which way does it move?
That will determine the direction of friction.
To get the answer, we see that if the maximum possible static friction is not able to stop the
block, it will move and in that case the friction will be kinetic. We will check that as we solve the
problem. To understand which way will be the friction act, let us first assume that there is no friction
and calculate the corresponding Fo for equilibrium. If applied F is greater Fo than the block will have
a tendency to move up, otherwise it will have a tendency to move down the plane. Free-body
diagram of the block looks (friction = 0) as follows.
Taking x-axis along the plane and y-axis perpendicular to it (see figure) we get from the equilibrium
conditions
Let us see what happens if we increase F beyond 558.6N. In that case the component of F up the
slope will increase and the block will have a tendency to move up. Let us now answer the second
question whether at 600N
( Fcos30° - 100gsin 30° )> Max. Friction OR ( Fcos30° - 100gsin θ ) < Max Friction
From
N=100gcos30° +Fsin30°
we get
N=981
=490
=848.68+300=1148.68N
Thus maximum value of frictional force is
On the other hand,
Thus only 29.6N of frictional force is required to keep the block in equilibrium. This is well below the
maximum possible frictional force. So under 600N, the block will be in equilibrium and the direction
of friction will be down the plane. The free body diagram will look as follows in this case.
Now we consider the case when the horizontal push is changed to 500N.
At F = 500N ( Fcos30° - 100gsin30°) will be negative so the block will have a tendency to slide
down. Let us again calculate the maximum possible frictional force µsN and ( 100gsin30º - Fcos30º )
for F = 500N .
N= 100gcos30° - Fsin30°
=848.68+250=1098.68
and
Further
100gsin30° -Fcos30° =490 - 250 × 1.732
=57N
which is again well below the maximum frictional force of 219.7N. So the block will remain in
equilibrium with its free-body diagram a follows.
Next we consider the case of the force pushing the block to be 100N. At F = 100N obviously the
block as a tendency to slide down since it does so for F = 500N. For 100N case
N = 100gcos30° +Fsin30°
=848.68+50
=898.68 N
and
Further
This force is larger than the maximum frictional (static) force. Thus the block will start sliding down,
However when the block slides down, the friction will no more be given by µsN but by µkN. Thus the
frictional force is = .17x 898.68N = 152.8N. Thus the free body diagram of the block will look as
given below.
Another way of doing this problem would be to apply the external force F and calculate the frictional
force required to keep the body in equilibrium by assuming a direction for the frictional force. This
would give both the direction and magnitude of the frictional force required for equilibrium of the
block. If this force is below µsN, the body will remain in equilibrium; if it exceeds µsN, it will move.
Next we consider friction on a belt or a rope going around an object. For simplicity, we consider the
rope to be going around a pulley and making contact with it over an angle .Let T1 >T2 so that the
rope has a tendency to slide to the right and therefore experiences a frictional force to the left.
Let us now consider a small section of angular width so and see how it gets balanced. Let the
normal to this section be shown by the dotted line.
Normal reaction in this direction balances the components of T and in the opposite
direction so that.
The frictional force is balanced by so that
Solving this equation, we get
Thus tension in the rope increases exponentially with the contact angle. Notice that the relationship
T1 =T2 does not depend on the radius of the pulley but only on the contact angle. Thus, even if the
shape of the contact is not perfectly circular, the same derivation applies and the relationship
between T1 and T2 remains the same, depending only on the contact angle.
Because of the relationship , if we take a cylindrical object - say a pencil -and let a
string pass over it, then . If we wrap the string once more, then , and
so on. This is nicely demonstrated by balancing a heavy object like a bottle filled with water by a
light object like a bunch of keys tied on two ends of a string and the string itself going many times
over a rough stick. More you wrap the string, a bigger filled bottle would you be able to balance with
the same bunch of keys. If you measure the weights of the objects carefully, you should be able to
check the relationship derived above and also get the value of the coefficient of friction (see figure
15).
We unknowingly use the effect discussed above when we wrap a clothes-string over the nail on
which it is tied many times to make it tight. Similarly boats are tied with the ropes holding them going
over a pole many times. We now solve an example where the surface over which the rope passes is
not cylindrical.
Example: A 70kg load is being lifted by tying a rope to it and passing the rope over a tree-trunk.
The persons lifting it have to apply a force of 1800N just when the load starts moving up. What is
the coefficient of static friction between the tree-trunk and the rope if the contact angle between the
trunk and the rope is 120°? (see figure 16).
Since the rope is in contact with the rope over an angle of , the relationship between
T on the slide of the persons pulling the rope and To on the side of the load is (friction is towards the
load since rope is about to move towards the persons pulling it)
Notice that we are not worrying about the shape of the tree-trunk but rather only about the contact
angle. It is given that T = 1800N and T0 =70 x 9.8 = 688N . Therefore we have
Finally, we take the example of a square screw thread and a screw jack. In this case a screw with
square threads passes through a nut and we wish to consider the action of the nut on the screw.
You have seen this in a jack where a load (say a car) is lifted by rotating a screw. So a load W is
lifted by applying a torque T on the screw (figure 17).
The threads on the screw make an angle α with the horizontal so that
where p is the pitch and r is the mean radius of the screw. We wish to find the torque T (minimum)
that is needed to lift the load W. When the screw is being lifted up the nut applies a normal reaction
and a frictional force on the screw shown in figure 16. Keep in mind that the normal reaction and the
friction act on the periphery of the screw. Thus they also apply a couple about the vertical axis on
the screw. The figure also shows the load W . Balancing the force in the vertical direction and the
torque about the vertical axis gives

This is the torque needed to lift the load W .
Let us now say that we raise the load and then release the torque. Will the jack self-lock i.e., would
it hold the load where it is and would not unwind. We want to find the condition for this. When the
screw self-locks, it will have a tendency to move down. Thus the free body diagram of the screw in
this condition looks as follows.
Balancing the vertical force now gives
and if the screw is not to unwind, the torque due to the friction should be large than that due N .
Thus for self-locking we require that
Thus is the condition for self-locking. Under this condition the screw will not unwind by itself as
torque due to the frictional force would be sufficient to prevent the unwinding due to the torque
arising from N .
Example: Let us now solve a household example of this. Sometimes you see that experimental
tables or refrigerators at home have screw-like contraption at their legs to adjust their heights. Let
the radius of such a screw be 2mm. We wish to know what should be minimum number of thread
per cm so that the screw self-locks for µS =0.15.
For self locking we know that
This gives on substitution
If the number threads per cm is N then
This gives
Thus there should be a minimum of 6 threads per centimeter in order that the screw self-locks itself.
We conclude this lecture with this example. In this lecture we have learnt about the frictional forces
and how they act under different situations.
Lecture 8 : Properties of plane surfaces I: First moment and centroid of area
Lecture 8
Properties of plane surfaces I: First moment and centroid of area
Having deal with trusses and frictional forces, we now change gears and go on to discuss some
properties of surfaces mathematically. Of course we keep connecting these concepts to physical
situations.
The first thing that we discuss is the properties of surfaces. This is motivated by the fact is general
the forces do not act at a single point but are distributes over a body. For example the gravitational
force pulling an object down acts over the entire object. Similarly a plate immersed in water, for
example has the pressure acting on it over the entire surface. Thus we would like to know at which
point does the force effectively act? For example in the case of an object in a gravitational field, it is
the centre of gravity where the force acts effectively. In this lecture we develop important
mathematical concepts to deal with such forces. Let us start with the first moment of an area and
the centroid .
First moment of an area and the centroid: We first consider an area in a plane; let us call it the X-
Y plane (see figure 1).
The first moment MX of the area about the x-axis is defined as follows. Take small area element of
area ΔA and multiply it by its y-coordinate, i.e. its perpendicular distance from the X-axis, and then
sum over the entire area; the sum obviously goes over to an integral in the continuous limit. Thus
Similarly the first moment MY of the area about the y-axis is defined by multiplying the elemental
area ΔA by its x-coordinate, i.e. its perpendicular distance from the Y-axis, and summing or
integrating it over the entire area. Thus
This is shown in figure 2.
Centroid: Centroid of a bounded area is a point whose x-coordinates XC and y-coordinate YC are
defined as
where A is its total area. We now solve some examples of calculating these quantities for some
simple areas.
Example 1: We start with the simple example of the first moment and centroid of a triangle with the
base along the x-axis. Let its base BC be of length b, and let the height of the triangle be h. (see
figure 3)
To calculate the Mx, we take a strip of width dy at height y (see figure 3). Then
But by similarity of triangles . So
Thus
Let us now calculate the x-co-ordinates for the centroid. For this let the x-coordinate of A be a so
that the coordinate of point A is (a, h).
Now
For dA let us now take a vertical strip (figure 4). Notice that . We will also perform the
x-integration in two parts: one from x = 0 to x = a, and the other from x = a to x = b because in the
two regions, dependent of y on x is different so
For the region x = 0 to x = a, we can write
and for the region x = a to x = b, we have
Thus
This gives
Thus for a triangle .
Example2: As the second example, let us calculate the centroid of a semicircular disc of radius R .
It would be quite easy to solve this problem if the centre D of the circle is kept at the origin but I want
to do the problem with the disc positioned as drawn below to show you how to tackle the problem.
The equation of OBC (the circular boundary of the disc) is
where R is the radius of the circle. The total area of the plate is . To calculate XC , we take
a vertical strip of width dx at x and calculate
With , we get
To evaluate this integral, we let so that the limits of θ integration are from
. Then
which gives
To calculate YC we need to calculate MX = , where dA represents as strip from x1 to x2 (see

figure 6)
From the equation of the circle we get
This gives
and therefore
Substituting y = R sin θ , we get
This gives
Thus the centroid of the semicircle shown is at . Notice that the y coordinate of the
centroid is less than which is easily understood because more of the area is concentrated
towards the x-axis.
We would no like to emphasize that the centroid (XC YC ) gives a point fixed in a given planar
surface and no matter in which co-ordinate system we calculate this point, it will always come out to
be the same point in the surface. Thus it is a property of a surface.
Now let us make one observation: If a body is made up of different shapes of surfaces whose
centroid are known. Than the centroid of the composite body
where XCi are the centroid of different surfaces and Ai their area. I will leave the simple proof for
you, but solve a couple of examples to show you how to use this observation.
Example1: Let us take a square of side a and on its two sides let there be two equilateral triangle
stuck on it (see figure 7). We wish to calculate the centroid for this surface.
We will consider this body as composed of the square AOBD, the triangle CDE on its right CDE and
triangle EAD on its top. Then for the square we have
For the triangle on the right of the square
And for the triangle on top of the square
.
Thus for the entire plane we get
Similarly
So because of the triangles, the centroid shift a bit to the right and a bit up with respect to the
centroid of the square; this happens because of the added area of the triangles.
Example 2: As the second example, let us take an area (ABCDE) that has been obtained by
removing a semicircular area from a square. We wish to find its centroid.
We know the position of the centroid of the square and the semicircular area. Thus
Therefore
From the previous calculation, we know that the centroid for semicircle is
from the base. So In the present case we have
The centroid of the figure ABCDE is then
which is a little more than 0.25a . If we had removed a rectangular area equal to half the square, the
X C for the area left would have been at 0.25a ; because of the extra area to the right of this point
when the semicircle is removed, the centroid shifts slightly to the right.
After introducing you to the mathematical concepts of the first moment and centroid of a surface
area, we now apply these ideas to problems in mechanics.
Application to mechanics: As the first simple application of the methods developed let us consider
beams which are externally loaded. We consider only those situations where beams are supported
externally so that the external reactions can be calculated on the basis of statics alone. As in the
case of trusses, such beams are called statically determinate beams. Now one such beam is loaded
externally between X1 and X2 as shown in figure 9.
In the figure the function f(x) is the load intensity which is equal to load per unit length. Thus force
over a length dx is given by dF = f(x) dx . The total load R therefore is
Next question we ask is where is the total load located? This is determined by finding the Moment
(torque) created by the load, which is given by
Thus the location of the load is given by the centroid of the area formed by the load curve and the
beam, taking beam as the x-axis. Let us now take some examples.
Uniform loading: This is shown in figure 10 along with the total load R acting at the centroid of the
loading intensity curve. The uniform load intensity is w .
The total load in this case is and the load acts at the centroid
Triangular loading : This is shown in figure 11 along with the total load R acting at the centroid of
the loading intensity curve. The height of the triangle is w .
In this case the total load is and the load acts at the centroid of the triangle. Recall
that for a triangle from the lower left vertex (figure 4) and in the present case
. Therefore the centroid is at
I will leave the case of trapezoidal loading (shown in figure 12) for you to work out. You may wish to
consider this loading as made up of two different ones: the lower one a rectangular and the upper
one a triangular loading.
Let us now solve an example using here concepts.
Example 3 : In figure 13 a beam on supports A and B is shown with two triangular loadings. All the
parameters of the loading are shown in the figure. We wish to know the reaction at supports A and
B.
If we represent the total loads of the triangles on the left and that on the right by L1 and L2 ,
respectively then
L1 acts at the centroid of the first triangle which is at a distance
From A. Similarly L2 acts at the centroid of the second triangle so its distance from A is
Let the reaction at supports A and B be NA and NB , respectively. Then
Further, taking moment about A gives
Therefore .
As the next example of the application of the concepts developed, we wish to calculate forces on
plane rectangular surfaces submerged in water.
Plane surface Submerged in water: Two questions we wish to answer are (i) What is the average
pressure on the plate? and (ii) where does the total force due to the pressure act? Consider a
rectangular plate of length l and width w submerged in water at an angle θ from the vertical as
shown in figure 14. The upper end of the plate is at the depth of h1 and the lower one at the depth of
h2 .
We first calculate the average pressure on the plate. At a depth y the pressure acting on the plate is
ρgy , where ρ is the density of water and g the gravitational acceleration. If we now take a thin strip
of width dy at depth y parallel to the plate's width, its area dA = , and the force on it would be
dF = . The total force on the plate would therefore be
This gives the average pressure to be
To understand the significance of the expression above better, let us introduce another length
variable Y along the plate (see figure 15).
Then we have so that we can write the average pressure as
However, is the Y-distance of the centroid of the plate. Let us call it YC .
Thus
Or the average pressure on the plate is ρg( the depth of the centroid of the plate ). We point out that
although we derived this result here for a rectangular plate, the result for the average pressure that
is true for a planar surface of any shape. This is because
and is the Y-distance of the centroid of an area of any shape.
Question that we ask now is: at what point does the total force act? To see this let us calculate the
moment of the distributed forces due to the pressure. This is given by
where
For a rectangular plate, , which is independent of Y. So the loading intensity
(force per unit length) for a rectangular plate is going to have the same dependence on the depth as
the pressure. Thus the loading on a rectangular plate is trapezoidal as shown in figure 14. The Y-
coordinate of the point at which the force acts is
This by definition is the centroid of the area formed by the loading intensity curve. You have already
calculated the centroid of a trapezoidal loading curve. Using that result we find that the total force
acts at a depth of
Using this result we now solve one example.
Example 4: A two meter high water tank has an opening of the size at the bottom.
The opening is covered by a door hinged on top, shown by A, and is stopped by a fixed wedge,
shown by B, at the bottom (see figure 16). Calculate the force on A and B (a) when tank has water
filled up to 1m, and (b) has 25cm of water in it. Weight of the door is 19.6N.
(a) As derived earlier, the average pressure on the door will be given by the depth of its centroid.
The centroid of the square is at a depth of (0.5 + 0.25 = 0.75m) from the surface of the water. Thus
the average pressure is
Thus the total force is
F=7350 × .25m 2 =1837.5 N
Notice that having derived our general result for the average pressure earlier, we do not have to
perform any integration again to calculate the total force; it is simply the average pressure times the
total area. The force is acting at a depth of
In the present case h1 = 0.5m , h2 = 1.0m . This gives that the total force is acting at a depth of
or 0 .28m below A. Thus the free body diagram of the door
looks as follows
From the force balance equations we have
NA +NB = 1837.5
and
N1 = 19.6N
The torque balance equation, on the other hand, gives
.5N B = .28 x 1837.5
This leads to NB = 1029 N . Putting this in the force balance equation above gives NA = 805.5 N.
Thus all the forces have been calculated.
(b) In the second case, the pressure works only on a part of the door and the loading due to the
pressure is triangular. Having given this lead to the solution, I'll leave the rest of the problem for you
to work out. The answers are NA = 25.425 N, NB = 127.7 N and N1 = 19.6 N.
To summarize, in this lecture we have looked at some properties a plane and used it in statics
problems. In the next lecture we will expand on this and develop concepts of moment of area and
products of area etcetera.
Lecture 9 : Properties of surfaces II: Second moment of area
Lecture 9
Properties of surfaces II: Second moment of area
Just as we have discussing first moment of an area and its relation with problems in mechanics, we
will now describe second moment and product of area of a plane. In this lecture we look at these
quantities as some mathematical entities that have been defined and solve some problems involving
them. The usefulness of related quantities, called the moments of inertia and products of inertia will
become clear when we deal with rotation of rigid bodies.
Let us then consider a plane area in xy plane (figure 1). The second moments of the area A is
defined as
That is given a plane surface, we take a small area in it, multiply by its perpendicular distance from
the x-axis and sum it over the entire area. That gives IXX . Similarly IYY is obtained by multiplying the
small area by square of the distance perpendicular to the y-axis and adding up all contributions (see
figure 2).
The product of area is defined as
where x and y are the coordinates of the small area dA . Obviously IXX is the same as IXY .
Let us now solve a few examples.
Example1: Let us start with a simple example of a square of side a with its center of the origin (see
figure 2).
Figure 3
To calculate this, we choose the elemental area as shown in figure 4 and integrate. Then
dA = ady
so that
Similarly for calculating IYY we choose a vertical elemental area and calculate
Let us also calculate the product of inertia. Choose on elemental area dxdy and calculate (see figure
5)
As noted earlier, IYX is equal to IXY and therefore it also vanishes.
A related problem is that of a rectangular area of size a x b. Its length of side a is parallel to the x-
axis and the other side of length b is parallel to the y-axis. I leave this as an exercise for you to show
that in this case , . Notice that due to the area being
symmetrically distributed about the x- and y-axes, the product of the area comes out to be zero.
Example 2 : Next let us consider a quarter of an ellipse as shown in figure 6 and calculate the
moment and product of area for this area.
Equation of the ellipse whose quarter is shown in figure 6 is: . For calculating
choose an area element parallel to the x-axis to calculate dA=xdy and perform the
integral
Using the equation for ellipse, we get
which gives
This integral can easily be performed by substituting y = b sin θ and gives
Similarly by taking a vertical strip to perform the integral, we calculate
and get
Next we calculate the product of area IXY . To calculate IXY , we take a small element ( ) as
shown in figure 7, multiply it by x and y and integrate to get
For a given x , the value of y changes from 0 to so the integral is
This integral is easily performed to get
Thus for a quarter of an ellipse, the moments and products of area are
If we put a = b , these formulas give the moments and products of area for a quarter of a circle of
radius a . I will leave it for you to work out what will be for the full ellipse about its
centre.
Using the second moment of an area, we define the concept of the radii of gyration. This is the point
which will give the same moment of inertia as the area under consideration if the entire area was
concentrated there. Thus
define the radii of gyration kX and kY about the x- and the y-axes, respectively. In the example of a
rectangular area of size a x b with side a parallel to the x-axis, we had ,
. So for this rectangle, the radii of gyration are and .
Having defined the moments and products of area, we now describe a relationship between the
second moment of an area about a set of axes passing through the centroid of that area and another
set of (x-y) axes which are parallel to those passing through the centroid. This is known a transfer
theorem.
Transfer theorem: Let the centroid of an area be at point ( x0 y0 ) with respect to the set of axes
(xy). Let ( x' y' ) be a parallel set of axes passing through the centroid. Then
But by definition
which gives
This is how the moment of area of a plane about an axis is related to the moment of the same area
about another axis parallel to the previous one but passing through the centroid. Similarly it is easily
shown that
and
We now solve an example to show the application of this theorem.
Example 3 : Calculate the second moments and products of area of an ellipse with its centre at (x0
,y0 )
In a previous exercise, you have already calculated the second moments and products of area of an
ellipse about its centre, which is also its centroid. These are:
We use these results now in applying the transfer theorem to obtain moments and products of area
of the ellipse about a different origin (see figure 8) . Thus
Similarly
Transformation of moments and products of area from one system to another rotated with
respect to the first one: We just learnt that if we translate an area so that its centriod moves to
another point, how its second moments of inertia and products of inertia change when the axes
passing through the centroid and the other set of axes are parallel. We now study how the moments
and products are related when we calculate them about another set of axes that an rotated with
respect to the first one. So we consider a set of area (xy) and another on (x'y') rotated with respect to
the first one by an angle θ (see figure 1).
We wish to relate . In lecture 1, we have already learnt

that
This gives
changing
Similarly
and
Thus
This gives the second moment and product about a set of axis (x'y') rotated about the other set (xy).
Let us now discuss some examples.
As expected for a circular area, no matter about which set of axes you calculate , it
will always come out to be the same because the area looks the sum from all set axes. What is
interesting, however, is that for a square also the moments and product of area are the same with
respect to any set of axes passing through its centre. It happens because with respect to its centre,
the IXX and IYY for a square are the same i.e. and . This is left as an
exercise for you to show.
We now use for formulae derived above to obtain what we call the principal set of axes for a plane
area. The principal set of axes at a point are those for which the product of inertia vanishes i.e. about
the principal set of axes . Let us see how we determine these axes if we know
about a given set of axes. In the following we refer to the principal set of axes as
(1,2) where 1 refers to the x-axis and 2 to the y-axis. We know that we want
where α is the angle the principal set of axes make with the (xy) set of axes. The equation above
gives
The principal set of axes has one more property: The moments of area is maximum one of the
principal axis (say x-axis) and minimum about the other (y-axis). This is seen as follow: Since
Let us find θ for which IX'X' is a maximum or a minimum. The condition
gives
This is the same angle a that makes IXY vanish. This means
Thus
When α makes the function IXX a maximum, the angle makes IYY a minimum. I'll leave it
for you to show that. Thus the principal set of axes are also those about which the II nd moment of
area is maximum about one axis and minimum about the other. Notice that for a square, any set of
axes passing through its centre is a principal set of axes. This follows from the exercise that you did
above. As a related quantity, we also define polar moment of an area . This is calculated as
Since r2 is independence of the (xy) system chosen, I is the same about any set of axes passing
through a point.
Having defined these concepts, at the end I will point out that in a similar manner IInd moment of
mass can also be defined. We will elaborate on that more in the later lectures on dynamics when we
deal with the rotation of rigid bodies.
Lecture 8 and 9 conclude our introduction to the properties of surfaces.
Lecture 10 : Method of Virtual Work
Lecture 10
Method of Virtual Work
So far when dealing with equilibrium of bodies/trusses etcetera, our strategy has been to isolate
parts of the system (subsystem) and consider equilibrium of each subsystem under various forces:
the forces that we apply on the system and those that the surfaces, and other elements of the
system apply on the subsystem. As the system size grows, the number of subsystems and the
forces on them becomes very large. The question is can we just focus on the force applied to get it
directly rather than going through each and every subsystem. The method of virtual work provides
such a scheme. In this lecture, I will give you a basic introduction to this method and solve some
examples by applying this method.
Let us take an example: You must have seen a children's toy as shown in figure 1. It is made of
many identical bars connected with each other as shown in the figure. One of the lowest bars is
connected to a fixed pin joint A whereas the other bar is on a pin joint B that can move horizontally.
It is seen that if the toy is extended vertically, it collapses under its own weight. The question is what
horizontal force F should we apply at its upper end so that the structure does not collapse.
To see how many equations do we have to solve in finding F in the structure above, let us take a
simple version of it, made up of only two bars, and ask how much force F do we need to keep it in
equilibrium (see figure 2).
Let each bar be of length l and mass m and let the angle between them be θ. The free-body
diagram of the whole system is shown above. Notice that there are four unknowns - NAx , NAy , NBy
and F - but only three equilibrium equations: the force equations
and the torque equation
So to solve for the forces we will have to look at individual bars. If we look at individual bars, we also
have to take into account the forces that the pin joining them applies on the bars. This introduces
two more unknowns N1 and N2 into the problem (see figure 3). However, there are three equations
for each bar - or equivalently three equations above and three equations for one of the bars - so that
the total number of equations is also six. Thus we can get all the forces on the system.
The free-body diagrams of the two bars are shown in figure 3. To get three more equations, in
addition to the three above, we can consider equilibrium of any of the two bars. In the present case,
doing this for the bar pinned at B appears to be easy so we will consider that bar. The force
equations for this bar give
And taking torque about B , taking N1 = 0 , gives
This then leads to (from the force equation above)

Substituting these in the three equilibrium equations obtained for the entire system gives
Looking at the answers carefully reveals that all we are doing by applying the force F is to make
sure that the bar at pin-joint A is in equilibrium. This bar then keeps the bar at joint B in equilibrium
by applying on it a force equal to its weight at its centre of gravity.
The question that arises is if we have many of these bars in a folding toy shown in figure 1, how
would we calculate F ? This is where the method of virtual work, to be developed in this lecture,
would come in handy. We will solve this problem later using the method of virtual work. So let us
now describe the method. First we introduce the terminology to be employed in this method.
1. Degrees of freedom: This is the number of parameters required to describe the system. For
example a free particle has three degrees of freedom because we require x, y , and z to describe its
position. On the other hand if it is restricted to move in a plane, its degrees of freedom an only two.
In the mechanism that we considered above, there is only one degree of freedom because angle θ
between the bars is sufficient to describe the system. Degrees of freedom are reduced by the
constraints that are put on the possible motion of a system. These are discussed below.
2. Constraints and constraint forces: Constraints and those conditions that we put on the
movement of a system so that its motion gets restricted. In other words, a constraint reduces the
degrees of freedom of a system. Constraint forces are the forces that are applied on a system to
enforce a constraint. Let us understand these concepts through some examples.
A particle in free space has three degrees of freedom. However, if we put it on a plane horizontal
surface without applying any force in the vertical direction, its motion is restricted to that plane. Thus
now it has only two degrees of freedom. So the constraint in this case is that the particle moves on
the horizontal surface only. The corresponding force of constraint is the normal reaction provided by
the surface.
As the second example, let us take the case of a vertical pendulum oscillating in a plane (see figure
5). Thus its degrees of freedom would be two if there were no more constraints on its motion.
However, the bob of a pendulum is constrained to move in such a way that its distance from the
pivot point remains fixed. We have thus introduced one more constraint on its motion and therefore
the degrees of freedom are reduced by one; a pendulum oscillating in a plane has only one degree
of freedom. The angle from the equilibrium position is therefore sufficient to describe a plane
pendulum's motion fully. How about the force of constraint in this case? The constraint, that the
distance of the bob from the pivot point remains fixed, is ensured by the tension in the string. The
tension in the string is therefore the force of constraint.
Let us now consider the folding toy shown in figure 1. This structure, although made of many
moving bars, has only one degree of freedom because the bars are constrained to move in a very
specific way. Thus from a large number of degrees of freedom for these bars, all of them except one
are eliminated by the constraints. As such the number of constraints, and therefore the number of
constraint forces, is very large. The constraint forces are the reactions at the supports A and B and
the forces applied by the pins holding the bars together. It is because of these forces that the
system is restricted in its motion.
I would like you to note one thing interesting in the examples considered above: if the system moves
the constraint forces do not do any work on it. In the case of a particle moving on a plane, the
motion is perpendicular to the normal reaction so it does no work on the particle. In the pendulum
the motion of the bob is also perpendicular to the tension in the string which is the force of
constraint. Thus no work is done on the bob by the constraint force. The case of the toy in figure 1 is
quite interesting. In the structure point A does not move and the motion of point B is perpendicular
to the reaction force at B. Thus there is no work done by the reaction forces at these points. On the
other hand, the constraint forces due to pins connecting two bars are equal and opposite on each
bar. But the points on the bar where these forces act (the points where the pin joints are) have the
same displacement for each bar so that the net work done by the constraint forces vanishes.
3. Virtual displacement: Given a system in equilibrium, its virtual displacement is imagined as

follows: Move the system slightly away from its equilibrium position arbitrarily but consistent with the
constraints. This represents a virtual displacement of the system. Note the emphasis on the word
imagined. This is because a virtual displacement is not caused by the applied forces. Rather it is the
difference between the equilibrium position of the system and an imagined position - consistent with
the constraints - of the system slightly away from the equilibrium. For example in the case of a
pendulum under equilibrium at an angle θ under a force P (see figure 6), virtual displacement would
be increasing the angle from θ to ( θ + Δθ) keeping the distance of the bob from the pivot
unchanged. On the other hand, moving the bob with a component in the direction of the string is not
a virtual displacement because it will not be consistent with the constraint. Virtual displacement is
denoted by to distinguish it from a real displacement .
4. Virtual work: The work done by any force during a virtual displacement is called virtual work.
It is denoted by . Thus
Note that our previous observation, that work done by a constraint force is usually zero, implies that
virtual work done by a constraint force is also zero. Also keep in mind that in calculating the work
done by the force , represents the displacement of the point where the force is being
applied.
With these definitions we are now ready to state the principle of virtual work. It is based on the
assumption that virtual work done by a constraint force is zero. The principle of virtual work states
that " The necessary and sufficient condition for equilibrium of a mechanical system without friction
is that the virtual work done by the externally applied forces is zero ". Let us see how it arises. For a
system in equilibrium, each particle in the system is in equilibrium under the influence of externally
applied forces and the forces of constraints. Then for the ith particle
Therefore
But we have already seen that for individual particles and for a system
composed of many subsystems , that is the net virtual work done by
constraint forces is zero. This means that the total virtual work done by the external forces vanishes,
i.e.
This is the necessary part of the proof. The condition is also sufficient condition. This is proved by
showing that if the body is not in equilibrium, the virtual work done by the external forces does not
vanish for all arbitrary virtual displacements (consistent with the constraints). If the body is not in
equilibrium, it will move in the direction of the net force on each particle. During this real
displacement the work don by the force on the ith particle will be positive i.e.
Now we can choose this real displacement to be the virtual displacement and find that when the
body is not in equilibrium, all virtual displacements consistent with the constraints will not give zero
virtual work. Thus when the system is not in equilibrium
Assuming again that the net work done by the constraint forces is zero, we get that for a body not in
equilibrium
This implies that when the virtual work done by external forces vanishes, the system must be in
equilibrium. This proves the sufficiency part of the condition. We now solve some examples to
illustrate how the method of virtual work is applied.
Lecture 10 : Method of Virtual Work
Example 1: A pendulum in equilibrium as shown in figure 5. We show the coordinates of the bob in
the figure 7 below.
If the pendulum is give a virtual displacement i.e.
By the principle of virtual work, the total virtual work done by the external forces vanishes at
equilibrium. So the equilibrium is described by
giving
Which is the same answer as obtained earlier.
Example 2: This is the problem involving two crossed bars as shown in figure 2. We wish to
calculate the force F required to keep the system in equilibrium using the principle of virtual work.
To apply the principle of virtual work, imagine a virtual displacement consistent with the constraint.
The only displacement possible - because of only one degree of freedom - is that .
From figure 2 it is clear that the external forces on the system are F and 2mg (weight of the bars).
As θ increased to θ + Δθ , the point where the bars cross moves down by a distance (see figure 8)
and the point when F is applied moves to the right by a distance
To calculate the net virtual work done, I remind you that work by a force is calculated by taking
the dot product , where represents the displacement of the point where the force is
being applied. Thus the virtual work in the present case is
For equilibrium we equate this to zero to get
which is the same result as obtained earlier.
So you see in both these examples that by applying the method of virtual work, we have bypassed
calculating the constraint forces completely and that is what makes the method easy to implement in
large systems. The way to learn the method well is to practice as many problems as possible. I will
now solve some examples to demonstrate the usefulness of the method for large system. To start
with let us take the example which we gave in the beginning - that of toy with made with bars.
Example 3: If there are N crossings in the folding toy shown in figure 9, what is the force required to
keep the system in equilibrium?
Again the degree of freedom = 1. The variable we use to describe the position of the mechanism is
the angle between the bars i.e. θ. As the angle θ is changed to (θ+ Δθ), the upper end of the bar
where force F is applied moves in the direction opposite to the force by
Thus the virtual work done by F is
On the other hand, the first crossing moves down by
The second crossing by
and the Nth crossing moves down by
All these displacements are in the same direction as the force = 2mg at each of the bar crossings.
Thus the virtual work done by the weight of the mechanism is
This gives a total virtual work done by the external forces to be
Equating this to zero for equilibrium gives

For N = 1 the answer matches with that obtained in the case of only two bars in example 2 above.
For larger N , the force required to keep equilibrium goes up by a factor of N2 .
Example 4: A 6m long electric pole of weight W starts falling to one side during rains. It is kept from
falling by tying a strong rope at its centre of gravity (assumed to be right in the middle of the pole)
and securing the other end of the rope on ground. All the relevant distances are given in figure 10.
Assume that the lower end of the pole is like a pin joint. Under these conditions we want to find the
tension in the rope using the method of virtual work.
In this problem also there is only one degree of freedom θ. The constraint is that the pole can only
rotate about the assumed pin joint at the ground. The constraint forces are the reactions at the
ground and do no work on the pole when it rotates. There is also the constraint of the rigidity of the
pole. Extend forces are W and T. By principle of virtual work when θ is changed to ( θ + Δ θ ) , the
total virtual work vanishes. If the centre of gravity moves up by Δy and to the left by Δx as θ is
increased to ( θ + Δθ ) , the virtual work done is
which, when equated to zero, gives
From the figure it is easy to see that
and (only the magnitude)
Substituting these in the expression for the tension gives
This concludes the lecture on the method of virtual work. In the lecture, I have given you an
introduction to the method assuming that constraints do no work. The method is really useful when
there are many constraints and the system is complicated. It makes calculations easier by avoiding
calculating constraint forces. The method also provides basis for simplifying dynamics calculations
under constrained motion. You will be learning more about it in an advanced course.
Lecture 11 : Motion in a plane: Introduction to polar coordinates
Lecture 11
Motion in a plane: Introduction to polar coordinates
So far we have discussed equilibrium of bodies i.e. we have concentrated only on statics. From this
lecture onwards we learn about the motion of particles and composite bodies and how it is affected by the
forces applied on the system. Thus we are now starting study of dynamics.
When we describe the motion of a particle, we specify it by giving its position and velocity as a function of
time. How the motion changes with time is given by the application of Newton's IInd Law. One such
particle at position moving with velocity and acted upon by a force is shown in figure 1. The force
gives rise to an acceleration . Notice that in general the position, the velocity and the
acceleration are not in the same direction.
Each of these vectors is specified by giving its component along a set of conveniently chosen axes. For a
particle moving in a plane, if we choose the Cartesian coordinate system (x-y axes) then the position is
given by specifying the coordinates (x, y), velocity by its components and acceleration by its
components . These are related by the relationship
and
These expressions are easily generalized to three dimensions by including the z-component of the motion
also. However, in this lecture we will be focusing on motion in a plane only. With these components the
equations of motion to be solved are
Coupled with the initial conditions solutions of these equations provide the velocity and position of a
particle uniquely. However, the Cartesian system of coordinates is only one way of describing the motion
of a particle. There arise many situations where describing the motion in some other coordinate system
i.e., taking components along some other directions is move convenient. One such coordinate system is
polar coordinates. In this lecture we discuss the use of this system to describe the motion of a particle. To
introduce you to polar coordinates and how their use may make things easy, we start with the discussion
of a particle in a circle.
Consider a particle is moving with a constant angular speed ω in a circle of radius R centered at the origin
(see figure 2). Its x and y coordinates are given as
with both x and y being functions of time (see figure 2).
On the other hand, if we choose to give the position of the particle by giving its distance r from the origin
and the angle Φ that the line from the origin to the particle makes with x-axis in the counter-clockwise
direction, then the position is given as
In this coordinate system, r is a constant and Φ a linear function of time. Thus there is only one variable
that varies with time whereas the other one remains constant. The motion description thus is simpler.
These co-ordinates are known as the planar polar coordinates. As expected, these coordinates
are most useful in describing motion when there is some sort of a rotational motion. We will therefore find
them useful, for example, in discussing motion of planets around the sun rotating bodies and motion of
rotating objects.
So to start with let us set up the unit vectors is polar co-ordinates ( r, Φ ) . Given a point , the unit
vector is in outward radial direction and has magnitude of unity. The Φ unit vector is also of magnitude
unity and is perpendicular to and in the direction of increasing Φ (see figure 3). Obviously the dot
product . In term of the unit vectors in x and y direction these are given as
As is clear from these expression the direction of and Φ is not fixed but depends on the angle Φ. On the
other hand, it does not depend on r. If we go along a radius, and Φ remain unchanged as we move
(recall that two parallel vectors of same magnitude are equal). But that is not the case if Φ is changed.
The position a of a particle in polar co-ordinates to given by writing
As particle moves about, changes. Does the mean that the velocity
The answer is no. As already discussed is a function of Φ, the angle from the x-axis. Thus as a particle
moves such that the angle Φ changes with time, the unit vector also changes. Its derivative with
respect to time is therefore not zero. Thus the correct expression for is
Let us now calculate . As already stated, does not change as one moves radically in or out. Thus
changes only if Φ changes. Let us now calculate this change (figure 4)
As is clear from the figure
where the dot on top of a quantity denotes its time derivative. The expression above can also be derived
mathematically as follows:
Thus the velocity of a particle is given as
We note that the unit vectors in polar coordinates keep changing as the particle moves because they are
given by the particles current position. Thus even if a particle were moving with a constant velocity, the
components of velocity along the radial and the directions will change. Let us calculate the velocity of a
particle moving in a circle with a constant angular speed. For such a particle
so the velocity is given as
This is a well known result: the velocity of a particle moving in a circle with a constant angular speed is in
the tangential direction and its magnitude is Rω. How about the acceleration in polar coordinates? This is
the derivative of with respect to time. Thus
As was the case with the unit vector , the unit vector also is a function of the polar angle Φ and as
such changes as the particle moves about. Thus in calculating the acceleration, time derivative of also
should be taken into account. From figure 4 it is clear that
This can also be derived mathematically as
Using this derivative and the chain rule for differentiation, we get
You can see that the expression is a little complicated. The complexity of the expression arises because
the unit vectors are changing as the particle moves. You can check for yourself that for a particle moving
with a constant velocity, the expression above will give zero acceleration. Despite little complicated
expressions for the acceleration, employing polar coordinates becomes really useful in situations where
motion is circular-like as we will see in two standard examples later. Let us first go to one familiar example
of a particle moving in a circle for which r = R , . This gives
which is the correct answer for the centripetal acceleration. For this reason is known as the
centripetal term. Let us now solve an example of mechanics using polar co-ordinates.
Lecture 11 : Motion in a plane: Introduction to polar coordinates
Example 1: A bead of mass m can slide without friction on a straight thin wire moving with constant
angular speed in a horizontal plane (figure 5). If we leave the bead with zero initial radial
velocity at , we wish to describe its subsequent motion and also find the horizontal force
applied by the wire on the bead.
To see the usefulness of polar coordinates, try to write equations of motion for the bead in the
Cartesian coordinates. This I leave for you to do. We solve the problem using polar co-ordinates.
Thus at any instant the acceleration is given by the formula
We emphasize that the expression above gives the components of the acceleration along the radial
and the f directions which are not fixed in space but are changing continuously. It is given that
(a constant) which also means that . The acceleration of the bead on the wire is
therefore
Since there is no friction, the wire does not apply any radial force on the bead. Therefore
You can check by substitution that the solution for the equation above is
where A and B are two constants to be determined from the initial conditions. Differentiating the
equation above gives
Thus acceleration perpendicular to wire is
So the horizontal force applied by wire is
Of course because the unit vectors employed change direction continuously, the force above is also
in different directions at different times with the magnitude given by the expression above. To
determinate A and B, we substitute t = 0 in the expressions derived for the radius and the radial
speed and equate them to their vales given at that time. This gives
This leads to the answer
Example 2: A particle, tied to a string, is moving on a smooth frictionless table in a circle of radius r0
with an angular speed ω0. The string is pulled in slowly through a hole in the middle of the table with
constant speed V. We want to find the change in its speed as a function of time and also the force
required for the string to be pulled (figure 6).
The mass, when pulled in, is moving under the influence of an inwardly directed radial force .
Although the force keeps changing its direction depending upon where the particle is, it always
remains radial. The expression for the acceleration of the particle in the polar coordinates is
Since it is given , which means , and the force is only in direction, we have
Since there is no force component in the Φ direction, we have
Multiply both sides of this equation by r to get
Since , the equation above gives
The force pulling the string in is therefore
In solving this example, we see that for forces in radial direction , which is nothing
by a statement of the conservation of angular momentum. We will discuss it more later when we
study angular momentum.
After introducing the planar polar coordinates, we nor briefly describe what are the other coordinate
systems in three dimensions. A natural extension of planar coordinates in the cylindrical coordinate
system. This arises when we add the third-z direction to planar polar coordinates. See figure 7.
The position of a particle is described by with the corresponding unit vectors being
. In this case the unit vector is a constant and are given as in the planar polar
co-ordinates so that
Thus the expressions for all the quantities are similar to those for planar polar co-ordinates except
that direction is also added. As a result,
We now introduce another set of coordinates, the spherical polar coordinates, in three dimensions. A
point in these coordinates is specifically by its distance from the centre r , the angle θ that the line
joining the point to origin makes with the z-axis and the angle Φ that the projection of this line on the
(xy) plane makes with the x-axis. Thus a point is specified by (see figure 8).
Thus co-ordinates for a point are
The unit vectors are given as with
unit vector points in a direction below the (xy) plane making an angle from the (xy) plane. So it
is given as
And is in the (xy) plane and is given as
which is the same as for planar polar coordinates. As is clear, the unit vectors in this case are also
position dependent and change as the particle position changes. This affects the expression for
velocities and acceleration when they are expressed in spherical coordinates.
Let us evaluate the time derivatives of geometrically. The unit vector does not
depend on r but changes with θ . This gives
Similarly when θ is fixed and Φ changes, we get
When we combine the two results we get
which gives
Thus the expression for velocity in spherical coordinates is
We leave the calculation of and the acceleration as an exercise. We end this brief
introduction to spherical coordinates by noting that spherical polar coordinates can be those of as
two plane polar coordinates systems : one the plane of radius vector and the z-axis with as
planar coordinates and the other the (xy) plane with as the planar polar coordinates.
Lecture 12 : Motion with constraints
Lecture 12
Motion with constraints
In this lecture we are going to deal with motion of particles when they move under constraints
applied on their motion. Of course the motion is determined by Newton 's second law i.e., by solving
the equation of motion
where is the total force – which is the sum of the externally applied and those arising from other
particles as well as the constraints in the system - acting on a body of mass m and is producing an
acceleration . Recall from lecture 9 that constraints are the restrictions applied on the
movement of a body by various means and are brought about by constraint forces . For example, I
may restrict the body to move along a straight wire (see figure 1). In that case the component of
only along the wire will affect the motion of the mass (if there is no friction) and its perpendicular
component will be nullified by the normal reaction of the wire, which is the constraint force in this
case. As another common example of constrained motion take the motion of two masses at the end
of a rope going over a frictionless pulley (Atwood's machine) also shown in figure 1.
In this case also, the motion of one mass is determined by not only by the gravitational force on it
alone but also by the weight of the other mass. Thus the two masses are not fully free to move under
their own weight and the motion is constrained. The constrained is brought about through tension in
the rope, which is then the constraint force.
We have seen two simple examples of constrained motion. We make an observation that constraints
can be caused either by restricting the motion externally, as was the case for a mass on a wire, or by
the presence of other bodies that are themselves moving, as in the example of two masses over a
pulley. In lecture 9 we had introduced these concepts and stopped at that. However, for obtaining the
positions and velocities of particles under constraints, we wish to express these constraints
mathematically and account for them while solving the equations of motion. This is what this lecture
is going to be about.
Let us start with the example of a mass on a straight wire (say in x direction). The constraint that the mass
moves only in the x-direction is equivalent to saying that
This is how we mathematically express the constraint that the mass moves only along the x-axis. As
pointed out earlier, to keep the y and the z coordinates of the mass unchanged, the wire applied a normal
force on the mass to cancel the perpendicular (to the wire) component of the applied force so that the net
force is along the wire. This normal reaction is the constraint force (figure 2). Notice that all that the wire
does to the mass, as far as its motion is concerned, is represented by this force.
To study the motion of the mass all I need to look at are only the forces – external and constraint forces -
acting on the mass. In this case the wire is represented by the normal force that it applies. Recall from
lecture 4 that such a diagram is called a free-body diagram . The advantage of drawing a free-body
diagram is that it identifies the relevant quantities to write the equation of motion. In the present case the
free-body diagram of the mass is given in figure 3.
Let us now write the equations of motion for the body in terms of its x, y and z -components :
Let us count how many unknown are there? The unknowns are x , y , z , Ny , and Nz , numbering five (
is given). But there are only three equations. How do we find the other two equations? For this recall that
the two of the unknowns, Nx and Ny , arise because of the constraints. And it is these constraints that
provide the two more equations needed for a solution. The constraints that y = constant and z = constant
imply that
With these two additional equations, we now have five equations and five unknowns. Thus and we can
solve for x , y , z and Nx and Ny in terms of given parameters of the problem.
Let us now look at the other problem of two masses hanging on the sides of a frictionless pulley (see
figure 1), a special case of Atwood's Machine. For simplicity we take the pulley and the rope to be
massless. Let the masses be m1 & m2 . In this problem also the motion is in only one direction i.e. the
vertical direction so we are going to ignore the other two dimensions. In this problem the constraint is that
the two masses move together and it is effected by the rope. As noted above, the force of constraint
therefore is the tension T in the rope. Let us now make their free-body diagrams for the two moving
masses m1 and m2. We measure all distances from the ground and let the distance of m1 be y1 and that
of m2 is y2 . Please see figure 4.
Equation of motion for m1 and m2 are
The tension T is the same on both sides because rope and pulley both are massless and the pulley is also
frictionless. These are two equations and there are three unknowns: y1 , y2 and T . The tension T arises
because of constraint so the constraint itself provides the desired third equation. In this case the constraint
is that the length of the rope is constant. This can be expressed mathematically as (see figure 4 for
meaning of symbols)
where R is the radius of the pulley. Differentiating this equation twice with respect to time gives
We now have three equations for three unknowns:
a result that you already know. Thus if m2 >m1, m1 accelerates up.
Through these two simple examples, I have identified sequential steps that we take in solving a problem
involving constraints I now summarize these steps:
1. Identify the constraints and forces of constraints in the given problem;

2. Make free body diagrams of different bodies taking part in the motion. Let me remind you in making
free body diagram take the body and show all the forces - applied and those of constraints - on the
body;
3. Write equations of motion for each subsystem/body. At this stage the number of equations will be
less than the number of variables in the problem;
4. Write the constraint equations. They will provide the missing equations (This happens because
each constraint introduces a constraint force which becomes the additional unknown);
5. Solve the equations.
Let us now apply the procedure outlined above to slightly more difficult examples.
Example 1: There are three massless and frictionless pulleys P1, P2 and P3. P1 and P2 are fixed
and P3 can move up and down, as shown in figure 5. A massless rope R1 passes over the pulleys
as shown and two masses m1 and m2 attached at its ends. A third mass m3 is hanging from P3 by a
rope R2 of fixed length. Find the acceleration of the three masses.
In figure 5 we have also shown the distances of different pulleys and masses from the ground, with
the vertically up direction taken to be positive. The heights h1 and h2 of pulleys P1 and P2,
respectively, are fixed whereas height yp of pulley P3 can change. We go about solving the problem
according to the steps given above.
Step 1: We identify two constraints and the forces of constraints as: rope R1 has fixed length with
the force of constraint being tension T1 in the rope. The other constraint is that rope R2 has fixed
length with the tension T2 in the rope as the constraint force. Because of massless pulleys and
ropes and frictionless surfaces T1 is the same throughout rope R1.
Step 2 : Make free-body diagrams of the subsystems. We consider only those subsystems that can
move. Thus we make free-body diagram of each mass and the pulley P3 as shown in figure 6.
Step 3 : By looking at the free-body diagrams, write equations of motion for each subsystem. In
terms of the distances shown in figure 5, we get
and because the pulley is massless
Thus equations of motion give four equations. However there are six unknowns viz.
. Their number exceeds the number of equations obtained so far by two.
Step 4 : The additional two equations are provided by the constraint equations. The constraint that
rope R1 is of fixed length is expressed as (see figure 5 for the variables used)
Differentiating this equation twice with respect to time gives
The second constraint that rope R2 is of fixed is equivalent to
which upon differentiating gives
Thus the equations that describe the motion of the system fully are:
I will leave Step 5 – that is solving the equations - for you to do but give you partial answer. It is
I would now like you to try a similar problem but with slight difference. Let us attach the centre of the
third pulley to a spring of spring constant k (see figure 7). Then find the equations of motion for the
two masses and solve them.
Example 2 : As another example of constrained motion we take a small block of mass m sliding
down on a cylindrical surface from its top (figure 8). The question we ask is at what angle from the
horizontal would the mass slide off the surface of the cylinder.
Since this problem involves motion along a circular path I would use planar polar coordinates. I take
the origin at the centre of the cylinder and let the x-axis be along the horizontal and y-axis along the
vertical. Assume that the radius of the cylinder is R . The constraint in this problem is that r =
constant = R. The corresponding constraint force is the normal reaction N of the cylindrical surface
on the block. The free-body diagram of the mass on the cylinder is shown in figure 9.
We now write the equations of motion in the planar polar coordinates. That gives in the direction
and in the direction
We again have three variables but only two equations. The third equation is provided
by the equation of constraint i.e.
r = constant = R
which gives
With this the equations to be solved are
To solve these we use
Substituting this in the equation for above gives
This when substituted in the equation for leads to
The point when the mass slips off the cylinder is where N becomes zero. So the corresponding is
given by
Example 3: Let us take one more example of constrained motion when two bodies are involved. I
put a block of mass m on a wedge of mass M with wedge angle θ (see figure 10). The wedge is free
to move on a frictionless plane. There is no friction also between m and M . We wish to find the
resulting motion.
There are clearly two subsystems, the masses m and M . There are two constraints in the system.
Constraint one is that the mass m moves along the edge of the wedge so its x and y components
are not independent. The other constraint is that the wedge moves only in the x direction. The
constraint forces are obviously the normal reaction N1 on mass m by the wedge and the normal
reaction N2 on the wedge by the ground. The free-body diagrams for the two subsystems are as
shown in figure 11.
Notice that in the free-body diagram of the wedge, there is no mg of block. It is all accounted for by
N1. To set up the equations of motion, let us choose our co-ordinates system a follows (see figure
12): Let the coordinate of the right-hand side lower corner of the wedge be given the co-ordinates
(x1 y1 ) and let the co-ordinates of the block be (x2 y2 ).
The equations of motion in terms of these coordinates are:
For the six variables - - of the system, we need two more equations,
which are provided by the constraints equations. These are
and
which gives
Thus the equations to be solved are
These equations can now be solved to get all the variables as a function of time. That task is left for
you. I'll leave you with answers for N1 :
Lecture 13 : Motion with friction and drag
Lecture 13
Motion with friction and drag
We have been looking at the constrained motion of particles and found that in solving the problems
we make free-body diagrams and look at the motion of each subsystem independently. Then the
motion of individual subsystem is linked through constraints that they impose on each other. The
example that we took were Atwood's machine and a mass sliding on a wedge. However, in these
examples we neglected a ubiquitous force which is the force of friction. In this lecture we take this
into account and solve problems involving the friction
We would take into account two kinds of frictional forces - one that arises when two solid bodies are
in contact and the other that arises when a body is moving through a liquid, the viscous force. Let us
first consider the case when two solid bodies are moving against each other. A detailed discussion
about the nature of frictional force and its relationship with the normal reaction has already been
presented in lecture 6. We start with a review of the main points discussed there.
If there is a tendency between two bodies to slide against each other, or if one body is sliding over a
surface, the friction between the two bodies resists this motion. Question is whether this is a
constant force or adjusts itself. It is experimentally observed that the maximum frictional force
that a surface can apply on an object is
where N is the normal reaction of the surface on the body and µ is the coefficient of friction; its value
is different for the static and dynamic case. Thus there are two coefficients of friction between two
surfaces: static coefficient of static friction µs and the coefficient of dynamic friction µk, with the latter
being smaller than the former. Further, µs is always observed to be less than 1. And the direction of
frictional force is such that it opposes the motion or the tendency to move.
Let us now take a couple of standard examples involving friction similar to those
solved in lecture 6.
Example 1: We put a block of 5kg on top a 10kg block. They are then attached
through a massless and frictionless pulley to a mass M as shown in figure 1. The
coefficient of friction between all surfaces for both static and dynamic friction is 0.5.
What is the acceleration for (a) M = 20kg and (b) M = 40kg ( g = 9.8m/s2 )?
What we should see in solution of this problem is the maximum possible acceleration
that the 5kg block can have, and then solve for the mass M0 that will give this
acceleration for both the 5kg and the 10kg blocks. If M is less than M0, both the blocks
will move together. On the other hand, if M exceeds M0, the blocks will slip on each
other.
To start the calculations I show in figure 2 the free body diagrams of all the masses
with maximum possible friction
Looking at the 5kg block, we see that
The maximum possible acceleration for the 5kg mass is
Let me now calculate M0 corresponding to this acceleration. The corresponding

equations for the 10kg block are
The equation of motion for the mass M then gives M0 as follows
Now I answer the question asked in the problem.
(a) For 20 kg mass, let the friction between the blocks be f. Then we have
These equations lead to the acceleration of the system as follows
(b) M = 40kg. Although I have already shown you that in this case the two blocks will
slide on each other. Let me show this to you again in another way. Assume that the
blocks move together. In that case the acceleration of the assembly will be
But this is larger than the maximum possible acceleration for the 5kg block, so the
assembly cannot move together. Under these conditions the equations for the 10kg
block and the mass M are
which gives
The 5kg mass of course moves with acceleration of only 4.9ms- 2 .
Example 2: As the second example let me take a hollow cylinder that is rotating about
its axis with a constant angular speed ω . Because of this rotation a mass m on the
wall of the cylinder does not slip down (see figure 3). If the coefficient of friction
between the cylinder wall and the mass is µ, what is the minimum value of w for this to
happen?
For the mass not to slip, the maximum possible friction on it should be greater than the
actual frictional force that holds it against its weight. Since the problem involves
rotation we will use cylindrical coordinates. The free body diagram of the mass is as
given in figure 3. The mass m experiences three forces when it is stuck to the wall of
the cylinder. These forces are its weight mg, the normal reaction N of the cylinder and
the frictional force f . In cylindrical coordinates the acceleration of the mass is
so that
Now
which gives
From this minimum angular speed ωmin is calculated as follows.
Thus .
So far we have discussed one kind of frictional force where two solid bodies are in
contact. We now learn to deal with the drag force which is experienced when a body is
moving through gas or a liquid. This force arises due to viscosity of the fluid. To the
lowest order in the velocity of the moving body, the drag force is approximated by
that is, it is a force in the direction opposite to the velocity and its magnitude is
proportional to the speed. So the equation of motion in presence of drag force will read
If we write it in its component form we have
These formulae are valid when the speed of the object is not very large; at large
speeds the drag force becomes proportional to the square of the velocity. The simplest
example of the effect of drag is the falling raindrops. Although falling from great
heights, they do not hit us with very large speed because of the drag force on them.
As an object falls vertically through a liquid/gas, the drag force on it increases with its
speed. At a certain speed - when the drag force equals the weight of the object - it
stops accelerating further and therefore moves with a constant speed. This speed is
known as the terminal speed or terminal velocity. Assuming drag force to be linearly
dependent on velocity, let us estimate the terminal speed of an object when it falls
through a liquid of viscosity η. Let the vertically downward direction be y, then
But the object will stop accelerating, i.e. , after attaining the terminal speed.
Thus at the terminal speed
which gives
That is the terminal speed of the object. To estimate the terminal speed we need to
know what k is. For a spherical object of radius a moving with low speeds, stokes
formula gives the drag force to be
If the object is made of a material of density ρ, the terminal speed comes out to be
Let us estimate what will be the terminal speed of a rain drop of 2mm radius. With the
viscosity of air , we get
This is too high compared to the observed speeds of about 20 kmph to 5 kmph.
Obviously the dependence of drag force on raindrops has higher power dependence
on their speeds. In this lecture we will however restrict ourselves to those cases where
the drag force depends linearly on the speed i.e. . We now solve
examples involving such drag force.
Example 3 : An object is thrown in a fluid with initial speed v0. Find its speed and the
distance traveled by it as a function of time.
Assuming the motion to be in x direction, the equation of motion is
You can easily check that the solution is
So that the speed initially is v0 and it decreases exponentially with time. The plot of
speed versus time looks like that given below
What about the distance traveled by the object? That is obtained by integrating the
speed with respect to time and is
So that the distance traveled looks like
Thus as , the body will stop after traveling a distance of
Of course as , the distance becomes larger and larger.
Example 4 : We now consider one-dimensional motion of a particle which is moving

under the influence of a constant applied force in a medium applying a drag force.
Motion of a particle thrown up or falling down is one such example. The equation of
motion in this case is
Let us take the force to be F and the initial speed of the particle to be zero. Without the
term on the right-hand side, the solution of the equation above was
which is, in the language of differential equations, the solution of the
homogeneous equation i.e., equation with 0 on the right-hand side. To get the general
solution, we add to the homogeneous solution the particular solution corresponding to
. The particular solution is
So that the general solution for the velocity is
Here v0 is some constant (not the initial velocity, which is given to be 0). If we start with
we get
which gives
The plot of velocity versus time looks as follows
with the terminal speed being . The next question we ask if the solution goes to the
standard solution of particle moving with a constant acceleration when k=0.
From we get an answer of 0/0 so we have to be careful in
taking k = 0 . Recall that the solution was obtained by assuming k ≠ 0 because we

have been dividing by k . Thus for the k=0 case we should take the limit of k → 0 .
Doing that we find
Now k → 0 gives which is the correct answer. We now calculate the
distance x(t) traveled by the object as a function of time.
You can see that t → ∞ the distance is given as
so at large times it increases linearly with the terminal speed.
For t → 0 it is
This is easily understood as initially there is no drag due to small initial speed and the
distance is given by the formula for uniform acceleration. Combining the two limiting
cases we see that the plot of x(t) versus time looks like
I'll leave it as an exercise that as k → 0 , we recover the familiar result
Also I would like you to solve for the velocity and height of a ball thrown up with an
initial speed v 0 when drag of air is taken into account.
Next we analyze the effect of drag on the projectile motion in the gravitational field. In
this case, we have a projectile shot with initial speed v0 at an angle θ0 from the
horizontal and we want to find to subsequent motion. The equations of motion are
(taking vertically up direction as the y-direction)
We have already solved these equations above, so the speed and distance in the x-
direction is given as
The equation of motion in the y-direction is
Its solution with the initial condition is
I give you an exercise now: find at what time s ? Show that this time correctly
goes to when k = 0 . Integrating the speed, we get the height y(t) as a
function of time. It is given as
Now to get the trajectory one calculates x(t) and y(t) separately and plots y versus x . I
give you some of these for a given but varying k. We take v0 = 100m/s and θ0 =
45º . For no drag situation we get the range R = 1010m and the highest point of the
projectile to be at h = 254m . When a drag coefficient of k = 0.1 is introduced we get R
= 495m and h = 175m , a reduction of about 50% in the range and 30% in the height.
For k = 0.2 we get R = 313m and h = 135m, giving a further reduction of about 40% in
the range and 20% in the height from the corresponding k = 0.1 values. Notice when
drag force is introduced, the range gets affected much more than the height. The
corresponding trajectories are shown below.
One interesting question we may ask is: for zero drag the maximum range is obtained
for θ = 45º. If we include drag, should the angle be larger than or less than 45º for
obtaining maximum range? Since x-component of the velocity is now decreasing one
intuitively feels that the projectile should be given larger speed in the x-direction for
maximum range. Thus the projectile should be fired at an angle less than 45º. This is
easily understood from the calculations presented above. As we saw in those
calculations, for k ≠ 0 the motion in y direction does not get affected as much as it
does in the x-direction. This also suggests that for maximum range we fire the
projectile at an angle slightly less than 45º giving it a lager velocity in x-direction. One
can also think of it slightly differently. When the particle is shot up drag force is large
(because of the initial speed) and also both the gravitational force and drag are
working in the same direction. So the partial takes longer to move up the same height
than it does in coming down. Since x-velocity is larger in the beginning, the projectile
should cover as much distance as possible while ascending than when it is coming
down (the x-component may well vanish by that time) This implies that θ0 should be
smaller than 45º.
What we have done so far is to include the simplest form of drag force in solving for
the trajectories of motion. However, as the speed increases drag force may also
include higher powers of velocity i.e. it may take the form
where is the unit vector in the direction of the velocity. This is written here to show
that force is opposite to the velocity vector. In such cases the corresponding
differential equation become non-linear in v and getting the solution becomes difficult,
necessitating the use of numerical methods. Some problems though do allow analytic
solutions. I end this lecture by giving you one such problem to solve.
Exercise : Throw a ball up will initial velocity and let the force of drag be .
Find the final speed of the ball when it hits the ground. Also find the height that it
goes up to.
Lecture 14 : Momentum
Lecture 14
Momentum
So far we have dealt with motion of single particles. Now we are going to make the situation slightly
more difficult by letting two or more particles apply forces on one another either by coming in
contact or from a distance, and see how we can describe their motion. In such a situation the motion
become much more interesting. Let us take an example of only two particles interacting through a
spring connected to them, as shown below.
During their motion any of the following could take place: the distance between them may change,
or their orientation may change,
or a combination of both these may occur. Now we wish to develop methods of dealing with such
situations. We do this gradually by taking one step at a time. In this regard, we start by introducing
the quantity momentum that plays a very important role in describing motion when more than one
point particle are involved in the motion.
To understand the importance of momentum, let us do the following experiment. Take a cart moving
on a frictionless horizontal plane and start putting mass into it; it may be dropped vertically in it (see
figure 1 below).
You will see that the cart starts slowing down. If we wish to keep it moving with the same velocity,
we find that we have to apply a force on it
Compare this with the standard form of Newton's IInd law where we put
So we see that whether the mass is changed and the velocity kept constant, or the velocity is
changed and the mass is kept constant, we have to apply a force to a body. Thus in general
(We have ignored the second-order term right now assuming that both the mass and the
velocity are varying continuously). Therefore
and this defines for us a quality called the momentum denoted above by . By definition
The force applied on a body or a system of particles is then the rate of change of their total
momentum, i.e.
where now refers to the momentum of the system made up of a collection of particles. In the
example taken above, we have to apply a force to keep the cart moving with a constant velocity
because as the mass falls in the cart and starts moving with same velocity as the cart, the total
momentum of the system - the cart and the mass in it - increases. In writing the definition of the
momentum above, we have implicitly assumed that all the particles of the system, with total mass
M, are moving with the same velocity. However, if the system is made up of N particles, each one
being of different mass mi (i = 1 to N) and also moving with a different velocity , the total
momentum of the system will be given as
A fundamental property of momentum is now follows from the definition of force in terms of
momentum. If the total force acting on a system of particles is zero, the total momentum of the
system does not change with time. To see it clearly let us go back to the two particles connected by
a spring (see figure 2 below). There we have
for particle 1 and
for particle 2. Here is the force on particle 1 applied by particle 2. Similarly is the force on
particle 2 applied by particle 1. By Newton 's third law
This immediately results in
So no matter how these particles move - their individual velocities or may change - but as
long as there is no other force on the system and Newton's third law is obeyed we are going to have
The equation above expresses the principle of momentum conservation - which is a fundamental
principle of physics - in its simplest form.
Let us understand this result. If we consider both the particles together as one system, indicated by
the dashed line enclosing them in the figure above, there is no force on this system. This is because
although each particle is acted upon by a force applied by the other particle, on the system as a
whole these two forces act in opposite directions and cancel each other, resulting in a zero net force
on the system. As such the momentum of the system does not change. Thus we conclude: If the
net force acting upon a system of two particles vanishes, their total momentum does not
change with time . Let us now see what happens when we apply forces on each particle also. In
that case we have
which gives
Again we see that no matter how the individual velocities change, the total momentum changes
according to the equation
Let us now generalize this result to a system of many particles (say N ). Then we have for the ith
particle
Where is the external force on the ith particle and is the force applied on ith particle due to
jth particle. Summing it over i gives
Now we can write
But by Newton 's third law which when substituted in the equation above gives
i.e., the total momentum of a system of particles changes due to only the net outside force applied
on the system; the interaction between particles does not affect their total momentum. And if
i.e., there is no external force on the system,
which means that the total momentum of the system is a constant. That is the statement of
conservation of momentum. We will see later that when combined with the principle of conservation
of energy, it becomes a powerful tool for solving problem in mechanics. For the time being let us use
this principle to develop some intuitive feeling about motion of a collection of particles; looking at it
as a single mass.
We now introduce you to the concept of the centre of mass (CM). To do this, let us look at the
equation of motion
which is equivalent to
Since total mass of a collection of particles remains the same, we can divide and multiply the left-
hand side of the equation above by the total mass to rewrite it as
Since , where is the position of the ith particle, the above equation can also be written as
Now we introduce the position vector for the centre of mass by writing
so that the equation of motion looks as follows
Now we interpret this equation: It says that irrespective of the interaction between the particles and
their relative motion, the centre of mass of a collection of particles would always move as if it were a
point particle of total mass M moving under the influence of the sum of externally applied forces on
each particle, i.e., the total external force. I caution you that the equation above does not imply that
all the particles are moving the same way. All it says is that they move in such a way that the motion
of their CM is described as if the CM was a particle of mass M.
Let us take an example.
Example 1: Suppose a bomb dropping vertically down explodes in mid air and breaks
into three parts. Let the mass of the bomb be m and those of three pieces
, respectively. If the heaviest piece falls 10m to the east and the
lightest piece 12m south of where the unexploded bomb would have dropped, where
does the third piece fall?
Since the CM keeps on moving - even after the bomb breaks -

vertically down as if it were a point mass of mass M falling under gravity. Thus the CM
hits the ground where the unexploded bomb would have fallen. Let us take this point to
be the origin with east side being the positive x-axis and the north side the positive y-
axis. Then after the bomb pieces having moved
for equal times. By definition of the centre of mass we have
With , this gives
Relative positions of the three pieces are shown in figure 3 below, with the centre of
mass at the origin.
You see that having the knowledge about the position of the other two pieces, we have
got the position of the third piece without the knowing anything about the forces
generated during the explosion and therefore without solving any equation of motion.
That is the power of the momentum conservation principle. I will leave it for you to
think which component of momentum is conserved in this case. Would that component
be conserved if drag force were included?
Other familiar examples of momentum conservation are a gun recoiling when fired,
two persons on roller seats pushing each other and consequently moving away from
each other. Look around and you will find many such examples of momentum
conservation.
I now discuss a little about calculation of the centre of mass of a mass distribution.
Calculation of the centre of mass is similar to calculating the centroid of an area
(lecture 7), except that the area is now replaced by mass. For finite masses at given
positions, the definition of centre of mass given above is used directly. For a mass
distribution in three-dimensions, we calculate all three components of the poison of the
centre of mass. These are given as
where dm is a small mass element at the position (x,y,z) in the mass distribution (see
figure 4 below).
We are now going to change the topic a bit and ask how we describe a system where
a large force acts for very short durations. A cricket bat striking a ball, a hammer hitting
a nail, a person jumping on a floor and coming to sudden stop and a carom striker
hitting a coin, or collisions in general, are examples of such forces in operation. In
these cases it is not meaningful to talk about the force as a function of time because
the time span over which the force acts is very-very short. Further, the force varies a
great deal over this short time-interval, as I show in an example below. It is therefore
better to describe the overall impact of the force in terms of the momentum change it
causes to the system. This is given by the integral of the force over the time that it
operates. Thus describes the effect of the force on the system. The
integral is known as the impulse and denoted by the symbol J. Obviously the
momentum change of a system equals the impulse given to it. We now discuss these
ideas with the help of an example, that of a ball hitting a wall or any other hard surface.
Let us ask what happens when a ball hits a wall or we jump on the floor. If the ball
hitting the wall reflects back, that means that the wall has applied a force on the ball so
that
If the time of contact between the ball and the wall is seconds then the average
force is
But the real force varies greatly from the average force. We show that now. Take the
model of the ball as following Hooke's law so that if it is compressed by x by the wall, it
applies a force kx on the wall and consequently experiences an equal force in the
opposite direction (see figure 5 below).
Since the force on the ball follows Hooke's law, the ball performs a simple harmonic
motion, its compression is given by , where A is the maximum
compression and . From time t = 0 , when the ball comes in and touches the
wall, it takes time (half a cycle) before leaving the wall. The force during this
time is given as
Since for a hard ball k is very large, . So by the time the ball comes
back, the force varies with time as shown in the figure 6 below. Here the maximum
force Fmax is given by kA and . In the figure we show both Fmax and Faverage .
The latter is calculated as
or
So you see that over this short period force varies a great deal and is hardly ever near
the average force that we calculated. The discussion above has been in terms of a
model of the force; the exact force will be different this model and so the variation
could be even larger than that shown. It is in such situations, when a strong force is
applied over a very short time period, that it is much more meaningful to talk of the
total momentum change of a particle than the force . Further, in such
cases, we generally observe only the initial & final momentum and are hardly
concerned about the finer details. It is this change
In the momentum that is known as the impulse. So in the ball rebounding from a hard
surface with the same speed as it comes in with, the impulse is , where is
the initial momentum of the ball. So instead of talking of the force applied by the ball
on the surface, we say that the ball has imparted momentum to the surface it hit. The
amount of momentum transferred is equal to the impulse. This has interesting
application in calculating the force on a surface when there are many-many particles
continuously hitting a surface, for example molecules in a vessel hitting its walls from
inside.
We show two situations in figure 7 below. The upper figure shows the variation of force
on a wall when particles hit a surface at some time interval. The lower one, on the
other hand, shows the situation when particles hit continuously. In the first case the
force on the surface due to the particles hitting it varies pretty much like the force due
to each particle itself. In the second case, however, the force at any instant is given as
the sum of the forces applied by each particle at that time. This gives an almost
constant force Fmany as shown in the figure. The value of this force is calculated as
follows. Let each particle hitting the surface impart an impulse J to it. If on an average
there are n particles per second hitting the surface, then in time Δt the momentum
transferred to the surface will be (nΔt)J. The force Fmany will then be given as
Since , the force above can also be written as
Thus when a stream of particles hits a surface, the force applied by them to the
surface equals the number of particles striking in time Δt times the average force
applied by each one of them, a result that you could have anticipated. This is
precisely what happens when a jet of water or flowing mass hits another object.
As an example let us calculate the pressure of a gas filled in a container. Let the mass
of each molecule be m and let their average speed be v . The number density of the
molecules in the gas is taken to be n . Now consider a surface of the container
perpendicular to the x-axis. (see figure 8).
Each molecule, when reflected from the wall imparts a momentum equal to 2mvx to the
wall. The average number of molecules hitting are A of the wall per unit time will be
half of those contained in a cylinder of base area A and height vx (the other half will be
moving in the other direction). This comes out to be . Thus from the formula
derived above the force on the wall applied by these molecules is
which gives the pressure
This is a result you are already familiar with kinetic theory of gases. But now you know
how it comes out. Having done this problem we now deal with another very interesting
application of the momentum-force relationship, known as the variable mass problem.
So far we have been dealing with particles of fixed masses. Let us now apply the
equation to a problem when the mass of the system under consideration
varies with time. The most famous example of this is the rocket propulsion.
Let a rocket with mass M at time t be moving with velocity . A small mass Δm with
velocity comes and gets stuck with it so that the rocket now has mass M + Δm and
moves with a velocity (see figure 9 below) after a time interval of Δt. We want
to find at what rate does the velocity of the rocket increase? We point out that the word
rocket has been used here to represent any system with variable mass .
Let us write the momentum change in time interval Δt and equate this to the total
external force on the system (that is the sum of external forces acting on M and Δm)
times Δt. That gives
is nothing but the relative velocity of the mass Δm with respect to the
rocket.
Dividing both sides of the equation above by Δt then leads to
We now let Δt → 0 . In this limit also goes to zero for continuously varying
mass. Further, , the rate of change of the mass of the rocket. Thus the
equation for the velocity of a rocket is
Note that both the mass and velocity are now functions of time. For a rocket
so that . It is this term that provides the thrust to
the rocket. As pointed out above, although this equation has been derived keeping
rocket in mind, it is true for any system with variable mass .
Example: We now solve a simple problem involving the rocket equation. A rocket is
fired vertically up in a gravitational field. What is its final velocity assuming that the rate
of exhaust and its relative velocity remain unchanged during the lift off?
The motion of rocket is one-dimensional. We take the vertically up direction to be

positive. Then we have where u is a positive number. Therefore the rocket
equation takes the form
which gives
Here we have taken the initial time and initial velocity both to be zero. Even after the
fuel has all been burnt, we see if we observe the rocket time t after being fired, its
velocity will be given by the formula
assuming g to be a constant.
Finally, although the momentum-force equation can provide answers for the velocities,
I would like to urge you to always think about how the internal forces that generate
momenta in opposite directions are generated. That helps in understanding the
underlying physics better. For example in the rocket problems, we say that
provides the thrust to make the rocket move forward. But think about what generates
this force? The answer is as follows. In a closed container, gas pressure applies force
in all directions and these forces cancel each other. But when a hole is made from
where the gas can escape, the force in the opposite direction is unbalanced; and that
is what makes the rocket move. If you understand this, you should e able to answer
the following question. If we take a closed box with vacuum inside and punch a hole in
it. Which way will it move?
We conclude this lecture by summarizing what we have learnt. We studied the

conservation of momentum and a related concept of the centre of mass. Using
momentum, we then calculated the force on a surface being hit by a stream of
particles, or jet of water. Finally we learnt about the variable mass problem and applied
it to a rocket taking off. In the coming lecture we will use the conservation of
momentum principle along with the conservation of energy and see how this
combination becomes a powerful tool in solving mechanics problems.
Lectures 15 & 16 : Work and Energy
Lecture 15 & 16
Work and Energy
You have been studying in your school that we do work when we apply force on a body and move
it. Thus performing work involves both the application of a force as well as displacement of the
body. We will now see how this definition comes about naturally when we eliminate time from the
equation of motion.
The question that immediately comes to mind is why should we eliminate time from the equation of
motion. This is because when we follow the motion of a particle, we are usually interested in
velocity as a function of position. Secondly, if we write the equation of motion in terms of time
derivatives, it may make the equation difficult to solve. In such cases eliminating time from the
equation of motion helps in solving the equation. Let us see this through an example.
Example: Consider the motion of a particle in a gravitational field of mass M . Gravitational force
on a mass m is in the radial direction and is given as
Since the force in the radial direction, it is better to write the equation of motion in spherical polar
coordinates. For simplicity we consider the motion only along the radial direction so that the
equation of motion is written as
As you can see, integrating this equation to get r(t) as a function of time is very difficult.
On the other hand, let us eliminate time from the equation by using chain rule of differentiation to
get
where is the velocity in the radial direction. This changes the equation of motion to
This equation is very easy to integrate and gives as a function of r, which can hopefully be
further integrated to get r as a function of time. Now we go back to what I had said earlier that the
definition of work and energy arises naturally when we eliminate time from the equation of motion.
Let us do that first for one dimensional case and analyze the problem in detail.
Work and energy in one dimension
The equation of motion in one-dimension (taking the variable to be x, and the force to be F ) is
Let us again eliminate time from the left-hand using the technique used above
to get
On integration this equation gives
where xi and xf refer to the initial and final positions, and vi and vf to the initial and final velocities,
respectively. We now interpret this result. We define the kinetic energy of a particle of mass m and
velocity v to be
and the work done in moving from one position to the other as the integral given above
With these definitions the equation derived above tells us that work done on a particle changes its
kinetic energy by an equal amount; this known as the work-energy theorem .
You may ask: how do we know this equation to be true and consistent with our observations? This
is the question that was asked in the early eighteenth century when it was not clear how to define
energy, whether as mv or as mv2 ? The problem with the definition as mv is that if two particles
moving in the opposite directions have their energies canceling each other and if they collide, they
stop and all the energy is lost . On the other hand, defining it proportional to v2 makes their
energies add up and noting is lost during collision; the energy just changes form but is conserved.
Experimental evidence for the latter was found by dropping weights into soft clay floors. It was
found that by increasing the speed of the weights by a factor of two made them sink in a distance
roughly four times more; increase in the speed by a factor of three made it nine times more. That
was the evidence in favor of kinetic energy being proportional to v2 .
Potential energy: Let us now define another related energy known as the potential energy . This
defined for a force field that may exist in the space, for example the gravitational field or the electric
field. Before doing that we first note that even in one dimension, there are many different ways in
which one can go from point 1 to point 2 . Two such paths are shown in the figure below.
On path A the particle goes directly from point 1 to 2 , whereas on path B it goes beyond point 2
and then comes back. The question we now ask is if the work done is always the same in going
from point 1 to point 2. This is not always true. For example if there is friction, the work done
against friction while moving on path B will be more that on path A. If for a force the work done
depends on the path, potential energy cannot be defined for such forces. On the other hand, if the
work W12 done by a force in going from 1 to 2 is independent of the path, it can be expressed as
the difference of a quantity that depends only on the positions x1 and x2 of points 1 and 2
(Question: If the work done is independent of path, what will be the work done by the force field
when a particle comes back to its initial position? ). We write this as
and call the quantity U(x) the potential energy of the particle. We now interpret this quantity.
Assume that a particle is in a force field F(x) . We now apply a force on the particle to keep it in
equilibrium and move it very-very slowly from point 1 to 2. Obviously the force applied by us is -
F(x) and the work done by us in taking the particle from 1 to 2, while maintaining its equilibrium, is
Thus for a given force field, the potential energy difference U(x2 ) - U(x1 ) between two points is the
work done by us in moving a particle, keeping it in equilibrium, from 1 to 2 . Note that it is the work
done by us - and not by the force field - that gives the difference in the potential energy. By
definition, the work done by the force field is negative of the difference in the potential energy.
Further, it is the difference in the potential energy that is a physically meaningful quantity. Thus is
we want to define the potential energy U(x) as a function of x , we must choose a reference point
where we take the potential energy to be zero. For example in defining the gravitational potential
energy near the earth's surface, we take the ground level to be the reference point and define the
potential energy of a mass m at height h as mgh . We could equally well take a point at height h0 to
be the reference point; in that case the potential energy for the same mass at height h would be
mg(h - h0 ) . Let us now solve another example.
Example: A particle is restricted to move along the x-axis and is acted upon by a force
. Find its potential energy.
We first note that the force is always acting towards the positive x-direction. Thus when we move
the particle, we will have to do positive work when taking it towards the negative direction. Thus we
expect the potential energy to increase as x becomes more and more negative. By definition
Now we choose our reference point. If we choose U(x1 = ∞) = 0 , the potential energy is given as
On the other hand if we choose U(x1 = 0) = 0 , we get
The two energies are shifted with respect to one another by a constant so that the difference in the
potential energy between two points is the same for both the forms, as pointed out earlier. The
potential energy is lowest for x = ∞ and increases as we move towards left and becomes largest for
x = - ∞ . This is precisely what we had anticipated above on the basis of the meaning of potential
energy.
Conservation of energy: Having defined potential energy we now combine it with the work energy
theorem to come up with another very important conservation principle: that of conservation of
energy . This is obtained as follows. By the work energy theorem
and by definition of the potential energy
Combining the two equations we get
This equation means that if a particle moves in a force field where the work done by the force does
not depend on the path taken, the sum of its kinetic and potential energy remains unchanged from
one point to another. The sum of the kinetic and potential energy is known as the total mechanical
energy. Thus in a force field for which the potential can be defined, total mechanical energy is
conserved. Such force fields, where the total mechanical energy is conserved, are therefore known
as conservative force fields. Thus whereas the example above is a conservative force field,
frictional force is not. Question: If the potential energy is explicitly time-dependent, is the total
energy conserved?
We now move on to generalize and discuss these concepts in three-dimensions.
Work and energy in three dimensions
As we already know, work is defined as the scalar product of the force and displacement vector.
Thus if a particle moves under the influence of a force field from point 1 to point 2 along the
path shown below, the total work is calculated as the sum of partial work done when the particle
moves a vanishingly small distance along the arrows shown below in the figure.
Thus the total work done in gives as
where C(12) indicates that the particle is moving along the curve C from point 1 to 2 . Writing the dot
product explicitly, we get
where Fi (i = x,y,z) indicates the ith component of the force and x, y and z are varied along the curve.
Let us do an example of calculating the work in this manner in two-dimensions.
Example: Consider two force fields (a) , and (b) in the

x-y plane. Calculate the work done by these forces when a particle moves from the origin to (1,2)
along the three paths C1, C2 and C3 shown in the figure below. On C1 the particle goes along the
x-axis first and then moves parallel to the y-axis; on C2 it travels along the y-axis first and then
parallel to the x-axis and on C3 it moves along the diagonal.
The work done is given by the formula
Along C1 y = 0 , dy = 0 while moving along the x-axis whereas x = 1 and dx = 0 when the particle
travels parallel to the y-axis. Thus the work done along C1 is
Similarly work done along C2 is given as
For path C3, we have y = 2x so that dy = 2dx . Therefore we substitute y = 2x in the functions giving
the force and replace dy by 2dx . As a result, the final integration is over x only with x varying from 0
to 1 . Thus the work done is
We are now ready to work out the work done by force in (a) and (b) (I would like you to plot these
force fields and leave it as an exercise for you). For the force in (a) we get
For force (b) on the other hand we get
Thus we see that whereas the force in (a) gives the work to be the same for all three paths, that in
(b) gives different work along the three paths. Thus the first force field may be conservative but the
second one is definitely not.
Now let us derive the work-energy theorem in three dimensions. Start from the equation of motion
and take the dot product of both sides with the velocity to get
Now integrate both sides with respect to time and use , where is the small distance
traveled by the particle in time interval dt , to get
On integration this leads to
This equation tells us that when a force makes a particle move along path C from point 1 to 2, the
work done by the force equals the change in its kinetic energy. This is the work-energy theorem in
three-dimensions. It is exactly the same as in one dimension except that the work done is calculated
by moving along a three-dimensional path.
Potential energy: As is the case in one dimensional motion, potential energy in general can be
defined only if the work done is path independent. In that case, the work done depends only on the
end points of the path of travel and can be written as the difference on a quantity that is a function of
the position vector only. Thus
where is defined as the potential energy. Notice that this time I have not written any specific
path but just the end points with the integral sign because the work is supposed to be path-
independent. From the definition above, it is also evident that here too the difference in the potential
energy between point 1 and point 2 is the work done by us in moving a particle
slowly, maintaining its equilibrium, from point 1 to point 2. Now following the exactly same steps that
we did for the one dimensional case, we show that
Thus when the potential energy can be defined, the total mechanical energy of a particle is
conserved . I remind you that the total mechanical energy is the sum of the kinetic and the potential
energies. In such cases the force is said to be conservative.
By now you may be wondering how can we find out whether a force is conservative or not. Do we
have to calculate the work done along all possible paths before we can say that the force is
conservative and therefore the principle of conservation of energy holds good. That certainly would
be impossible to do. However, there is a much simpler test to check whether a force field is
conservative or not. I am going to tell you about it without giving the proof. To find out about the
conservative nature of a force , we calculate its curl defined as
Now if the curl of a force field vanishes everywhere, it is a conservative force field. On the other
hand if the curl of a force field is nonzero, it is not conservative. Let us now apply this test to the two
force fields for which we calculated the work done along different paths. For the force field
, the curl is zero everywhere. Hence it is conservative and, as we saw with
three paths, the work done in this field is indeed path independent. On the other hand, for
, the curl comes out to be and therefore the force is not conservative.
This was seen above where the work done along the three paths were all different. We now solve
an example where knowing the conservative nature beforehand helps us avoid an unnecessary
calculation.
Example: Take the force field given by and consider a
particle moving from A to be along the semicircular path ACB (see figure below). Calculate the
difference in its kinetic energy at B and at A.
To calculate the change in the kinetic energy of the particle as it moves from A to B, we should
calculate the work done by the force in when the particle travels along the semicircle. For this we
should calculate
with y and dy calculated from the equation of the circle . You should try it
and see for yourself that the integrals become really lengthy. On the other hand, if the force is
conservative, we can calculate the work done in particle moving along the diameter. The latter
calculation is much easier. Let us therefore first calculate the curl of the force. It is
Thus the work done between any two points is path-independent. We therefore calculate the work
along the diameter AB. It is
Since the work done is independent of the path, it is going to be the same for the semicircular path
ACB also.
After defining the potential energy and getting the principle of conservation energy, we now look a
little more at the relationship between the potential energy and the force it gives rise to. As a
consequence we also discuss what can we learn about the motion of a particle by looking at its
potential energy curve.
Learning about force and motion from the potential energy
We learnt above about how the force leads to the concept of potential energy. However, it is the
potential energy that is easier to specify than the force. The reason is very simple: force is a vector
quantity and as such in specifying it we have to give its three components as a function of position.
On the other hand, potential energy is a scalar quantity and is easier to write as a function of
position. For the same reason, many a times it is easier to calculate the potential energy than to
calculate the force, as we will see in an example below. Thus generally we give the potential energy
of a particle to tell about the force field in which the particle is moving. In this section we discuss
what can we learn about the motion of a particle by looking at its potential energy.
First we discuss how do we get the force from the potential energy. Let us first look at one-
dimensional case. Employing the definition of potential energy, we find that for a small displacement
Δx
which means that the force is given by the formula
This is the key formula relating the force to the potential energy. On the basis of this formula, we can
infer a lot about the nature of motion by looking at the potential energy curve. First if ,
then the force is towards the negative x-direction and if , the force is towards the
positive x-direction. Thus the force is in the direction of decreasing U(x). What if ? In
that case the particle in either on a maximum or a minimum of the potential and there is no force on
the particle. The particle is therefore in equilibrium. The equilibrium will be stable one, that is the
particle will come back to the equilibrium point when displaced slightly from that point, if it is at the
potential energy minimum or equivalently where . On the other hand at the maximum
of the potential energy, the particle will rush away from that point if it is disturbed. Thus at the
potential energy maximum, where , the equilibrium is unstable. We see that a particle
tends to move towards its potential energy minimum and move away from its potential energy
maximum. All these concepts can be shown nicely with a bead moving on a smooth frictionless wire
bent in the shape of a curve with many maxima and minima and held in the vertical plane (see the
figure below). The potential energy of the bead is then proportional to the height of the curve and as
such the wire itself represents the potential energy curve in the figure below.
https://nptel.ac.in/content/storage2/courses/122104014/lecture15/15_7.htm 1/4
Now with a bead sliding over the wire, you can easily check that all the points made above about
the relationship between the force on the bead and the mathematical properties of the potential
energy curve are correct. Further the minima and maxima of the curve are clearly observed to be
stable and unstable equilibrium points, respectively.
In three dimensions the equivalent of the derivative is the gradient operator. Thus the force in
two or three dimensions is given as
Thus the force is in the direction opposite to that of increasing U. Further, it vanishes wherever the
gradient of the potential energy is zero. Individual components of the force are given as
A word of caution is needed here. does not mean that if we transform
to some other co-ordinates system (say spherical) then
will be correct. This is not even dimensionally correct. To get the correct answer, one must properly
transform from Cartesian to polar co-ordinates. The result then is
Thus in spherical polar coordinate system, the force components are given as
Similarly in cylindrical coordinate system the force is related to the potential energy as
With the individual force components
Having given you the prescription for obtaining force from the potential energy let us now apply it to
find the field of an electric dipole using its scalar potential.
Example: As an application of finding force from the potential, let us calculate the electric field due
to a dipole.
Let the dipole be situated at the origin along the x-axis. Let the charges -q and +q be separated by
distance 2a (see figure below) so that the dipole moment is . Then potential and field at
any point can be calculated by adding the field due to the two charges. Adding the field in this case
becomes a bit difficult because we have to obtain three components of the field for each charge and
add them. On the other hand, finding the potential is relatively easy because it is a scalar quantity
and we obtain it by adding the potential due to two charges. Then the gradient gives the field. In the
calculation we assume that a → 0 and q is correspondingly very large so that their product is finite.
We will be using this by keeping term only linear in a and neglecting higher orders.
The potential (potential energy per unit charge) due the two charges is given as
Now taking the gradient we get the three components of the force, which are
Similarly
Combining these results together we get for the field of the dipole
I would like you to get the same result by adding the fields of the charges together and compare the
answers.
In these lectures, we have learnt: the work-energy theorem, definition of potential and its
relationship with the force field, concept of conservative forces and the principle of conservation of
energy. I leave these lectures by giving you a few exercises.
Exercise 1: Consider one-dimensional motion in a potential U(x). Show that if a particle of mass m
is displaced slightly from its equilibrium position at a potential energy minimum at x0 , it will perform
simple harmonic oscillations. Find the corresponding frequency.
Exercise 2: Consider two different inertial frames moving with respect to one another with a
constant velocity. Starting from the work-energy theorem in one frame, prove that it is true in the
other frame also.
Lecture 17 : Collisions
Lecture 17
Collisions
In the previous two lectures, we have seen that when many particles are interacting, there are two
conservation systems that are obeyed by them. One, if the net external force on the particles is
zero, the total angular momentum of the system remains a constant. This is expressed
mathematically as
Further we saw during the motion of a many particle system, one point - its centre of mass - moves
as if its mass M is equal to the total mass of the system and the total force is
being applied on that mass. The CM co-ordinate is defines as
And it moves according to the equation
Thus if then . That means if the total external force on the system is
zero, the CM moves with a constant velocity. This is another way of expressing the conservation of
linear momentum.
The other conservation principle that we saw was that of total energy. Accordingly the total energy,
which is the sum of their kinetic energy KEi and potential energy PEi , of a system of particles
remains a constant
As an example of the power of these principles, in this lecture we apply these two principles to the
problem of two particles of masses m1 and m2 colliding.
Before we discuss the problem of two particles colliding, we prove something very important and
useful: Kinetic energy of a system of particles is equal to the sum of the kinetic energy of its centre
of mass and kinetic energy of particles with respect to the centre of mass . By kinetic energy of the
CM we mean its kinetic energy calculated as a point particle of the total mass moving
with the velocity of the CM. To see this, substitute in the expression for the kinetic energy
, where is the velocity of the CM and is the velocity of ith particle in the CM
frame. This gives
Now is the momentum of the CM with respect to the CM and therefore proportional to the
velocity of the CM with respect to the CM. But the velocity of the CM relative to the CM is zero
implying that . This immediately gives
= KE of the CM + KE about the CM
This result, that the kinetic energy of a system of particles can be decomposed into KE of the CM
and KE about the CM, is very important and useful. In a later lecture, we will see that the same is
true for the angular momentum.
The division of kinetic energy as shown above is useful in learning how energies are shared when
particles interact with each-other for short periods of time. As an example take explosion of a bomb.
Since the CM will keep on moving the same way as it was before the explosion - because the forces
generated are between the pieces of the bomb and therefore have no effect on the total momentum
of the system - the explosion does not change the kinetic energy of the CM. Thus all the energy
released in the explosion goes to the kinetic energy of the pieces of the bomb with respect to the
CM. As another example, consider two particles colliding and getting stuck together. Since the CM
keeps on moving with the same speed because of momentum conservation, the minimum kinetic
energy that the masses stuck together have to have is that of the centre of mass. Thus the
maximum possible energy loss in this case is the sum of their kinetic energy relative to their CM
(also called the kinetic energy in the CM frame).
We now get back to the problem of two particles colliding. We consider two particles of masses m1
and m2 coming in with velocities , respectively, interacting in a region, and then going out
with velocities (see figure 1). This is the simplest collision problem. If more particles are
involved then the problem is going to be move complicated.
Since we assume particles interact only when they are close to each other, they are essentially free
before and after the collision. Further, the interaction region is very small; thus even if the particles
are in an external field, the potential energy remains essentially unchanged during the collision.
Thus we can write
where we have added ΔE on the left-hand side to take into account any addition or loss of energy
during the interaction of particles. For example if the particles generate some energy during
interaction, ΔE > 0 . This will be the case when two particles release some chemical energy. On the
other hand, ΔE < 0 when the particles lose energy during interaction. This is called an inelastic
collision. ΔE = 0 is the case of elastic collision; here the total kinetic energy before and after the
collision is the same. If particles interact over a large region, we can take the velocities to be in the
asymptotic region, where the particles are far apart and therefore the equations above are
applicable. The discussion so far has been in terms of balancing the energies involved during the
interaction.
The other conservation principle is that of conservation of momentum. Usually during collision the
impulse due to collision (internal force if two particles are considered as one system) is much larger
than any external impulses. So we neglect it and conserve momentum. If the external impulse
comparable to the internal impulse, it must be taken into account. This could be the case when the
external force is very large or the particles interact for a long time. For the time being though, we will
focus on cases where external impulse can be neglected. Thus
The two equations are actually a set of four equations with momentum conservation giving three
equations, one for each component. However, given , we have to solve for six
quantities, three components for and three for . Thus to solve the problem completely, we
need more information, for example the scattering angles. In two dimensions also, the conservation
equations alone are not enough to solve the problem of finding velocities after the collision. This is
because now there will be four unknowns - two components for velocity of each particle - but only
three equation, one from the energy balance and two from momentum conservation. Only in one
dimension, we can solve the collision problem completely because there are two equations and two
unknowns. Nonetheless, we can get a lot of information about the motion from these two
conservation laws as we now discuss.
As the first example, let us consider two particles of masses m1 and m2 moving with velocities
, respectively, colliding, getting stuck together to make a particle of mass (m1 +m2 ) that
moves with velocity . In the process energy ΔE is released. Then moment conservation tells us
and balancing the energy gives
Notice that we have added to ΔE to the left-hand side so that the total final kinetic energy is the sum
of the total initial kinetic energy and the energy added to the system. Substituting for from the
momentum conservation equation in the energy equation, we get
which on simplification gives
The left-hand side of the equation above is definitely positive. On the other hand, the right-hand side
is negative if ΔE > 0 , i.e., the final kinetic energy is larger than the initial kinetic energy. So this
reaction will not be possible if it is exothermic, i.e., some energy is generated and added to the initial
kinetic energy. Thus two atoms colliding in free space will not combine to form a molecule (in which
process the energy is usually released). However if energy is taken away from the system, i.e. ΔE <
0, then the reaction is possible. This is the information we have got purely on the basis of
conservation laws. We now go on to discuss collisions as described with respect to the CM. We will
see that this gives us a lot of insight into the collision problem.
As we had stated earlier, the conservation of momentum implies that the centre of mass moves with
a constant velocity when there is no external force on the particles. Thus if we attach a frame to the
CM, it will also move with constant velocity and will be an initial frame of reference. Let us call this
the CM frame. Since it is an inertial frame, we can equally well describe a collision process is a CM
frame. Observing a collision from the CM frame gives us the biggest advantage that the sum of the
momenta (the total momentum) is always zero in this frame. In this lecture we will be focusing on
two particle collisions as described from the CM frame. We will see that because of the total
momentum being zero, description of a collision in this frame becomes simpler. In coming lectures
we will see that CM provides a convenient origin for studying rotational motion also.
For now, let us look at the two particles collision. As stated above, in the CM frame the total
momentum is always zero because in this frame the CM does not move. So that the velocities of
two particles in the CM frame are always in the direction opposite to each other. Further the motion
remains confined to a plane formed by the lines representing the initial and the final velocities
directions (keep in mind that the velocities of the two particles at any instant are along the same line
though opposite in direction). Thus in the CM frame a collision looks as shown in figure 2.
In figure 2 two particles with masses m1 and m2 and velocities and are coming
in for a collision; they collide and particle 1 goes out with velocity and particle 2 with
. In the process particle 1 gets deflected by an angle ΘCM. As stated earlier, even in
2d there are four unknowns: two components of and two of to be obtained but only three
equations- one for energy conservation and two for momentum conservation. So the problem
cannot be solved fully by using conservation principle only. However, if the interaction is known,
then ΘCM and both the velocities after collision can in principle be calculated. Let us now see how
much can we learn about the motion after collision applying only the conservation principles. We will
be discussing both the elastic and inelastic collisions. Recall that if the kinetic energy remains
unchanged in a collision, the collision is elastic; on the other hand, if the energy is lost the collision
is inelastic.
Let us first focus on an elastic collision and analyze it in the CM frame. As pointed out earlier, the
velocities of the two particles before and after collision are opposite to each other. Thus the
relationship between the magnitudes v1C , v2C , v'1C and v'2C of the velocities is
Substituting for and from the first two equations in the last one we get
Thus the velocity vectors of both particles just rotate but do not change in magnitude as the partial
move out after collision. You have learnt in previous classes that in an elastic collision the
magnitude of the relative velocity of one particle with respect to the other remains unchanged during
the collision. In one dimension it means that the speed of approach of two particles is the same as
their speed of separation. Let us now see how it follows directly from the conservation principles.
As we have derived above, in an elastic collision. If the velocities of the

two particles are , respectively, in the ground frame, then
Similar relationships hold for the velocities after collision i.e.
Using these relationships we find that
Similarly, we have
Thus we see that in an elastic collision
We have shown that the magnitude of relative velocity of one particle with respect to other remains
the same in an elastic collision.
To see the dramatic effects of a nearly elastic collision, take a table-tennis ball (very small mass m),
put it on a large bouncy ball of mass M (M >> m) , and drop them from a height (see figure 4) on a
hard floor. You will see that the table-tennis ball bounces back really high after the balls hit the
ground. Can you work how high will it go if the balls are dropped from a height h? Assume that no
energy is lost.
Now we consider a two-particle elastic collision in a plane and analyze it. This could be the collision of a
striker and a coin on a carom board, for example. It is a two-dimensional case. We are going to analyze
the motion graphically. First we look at the velocities in the CM frame. If we take the initial direction of
particle 1 towards +x , the velocities of the two particles before and after collision can be shown as done in
figure 5. Keep in mind that in an elastic collision, the magnitude of the velocities of each particle remains
unchanged in the CM frame. However the direction of the velocity for each particle changes by an angle
ΘCM. as shown in figure 5.
The picture above shows the angle of scattering in the CM frame. However experiments are done on
ground - and not in the CM frame. So we should be answering the question: by what angle θlab does
particle 1 scatter in the laboratory frame? Since velocities and in the lab frame are given as
, the relationship between these velocities can be shown as done in
figure 6.
From figure 6, it is now very easy to see that
Similar relationships can also be derived for particle 2. Now if particle 2 was at rest when hit by particle 1,
then
This gives
Let us now look at two cases: m1 > m2 and m1 < m2 . In the case of m1 > m2 , θlab cannot be greater than
a particular angle θmax. This can be either calculated by using the expression above or alternatively,
graphically as we do. For m1 > m2 we also have vCM >v1C . Thus a picture showing the velocities in the
laboratory and the CM frame looks like that in figure 7.
It is clear from figure 7 that the deflection angle of particle 1, when hitting another particle of smaller mass,
increases as ΘCM increases from zero. It is maximum when the velocities and are perpendicular.
If is rotates beyond this angle, deflection starts becoming smaller. Thus θmax is given by the formula
It is clear from the expression above that when a particle hits a lighter particle at rest, it is deflected by a
small angle. This is reasonable as a light particle can hardy deflect a heavier particle. Thus the heavier
particle keeps on moving forward even after the collision. On the other hand, there is no restriction on the
scattering angle when a light particle hits a heavier particle at rest i.e. m1 < m2 . In this case vCM < v1C
and therefore the graphical representation of different velocities is as shown in figure 8.
It is clear from the figure that as ΘCM increases, so does θlab. In this situation, however, there is no
restriction on the value that θlab can take as ΘCM sweeps angles from 0 to 2π .
So far we have focused on elastic collisions only and could learn a great deal about them from
conservation laws for momentum and energy. Such general conclusions are difficult to draw for inelastic
collisions. As discussed in the beginning of this lecture, for inelastic collisions, we can definitely say that
the maximum possible loss of energy is equal to the kinetic energy of particles in their CM frame. This
would occur when the colliding particles get stuck together so that their kinetic energy after collision is
zero in the CM frame. This concludes our lecture on collisions as analyzed using conservation laws.
Lecture 18 : Rotational dynamics I: Angular momentum
Lecture 18
Rotational dynamics I: Angular momentum
So far we have applied Newton's laws to point particles and the CM motion for a collection of
particles. We are now going to look at what happens beyond the motion of the CM, which is
described by the equation
Let us see what else could happen to a body made up of a collection of particles where forces are
applied at each point (figure 1). The particles are connected with flexible attachments shown as
lines.
In the figure above, although the CM moves with , the body itself could deform and
change its orientation. Thus the distances between the particles and the angles between lines
joining them would change. This is the most general motion that could take place. In the next few
lectures we want to focus only one of the effects of the force applied. We are going to assume that a
body only changes its orientation but does not deform. This is achieved by keeping the distance
between any two particles of the body unchanged. Such a body is known as a rigid body . Thus in
the example above, if we connect all the particles with each other by rods of fixed length, the body
will become rigid. This is shown in figure 2.
The only possible motion of such a body is a translation plus a change in its orientation. The
simplest example of a rigid body is two masses attached at the ends of a rod of fixed length. On the
other hand, a tin-can partially filled with sand is not a rigid body since the distance between two
particles keeps on changing with the motion of the can.
As stated above, the most general motion of a rigid body is its translation plus its change of
orientation. The latter is equivalent to a rotation about a point. The beauty of this decomposition is
that to get the final position of the body, we can translate any point in the body and then rotate the
body about that point. Irrespective of which point we choose, the sense and the angle of rotation is
always the same. Usually this point is taken to be the CM for reasons that will become clear later
lectures. This general motion is shown below in figure 3, giving two possible ways of translating and
rotating the body.
You see that in figure 3 the rigid body has translated and also rotated. On the other hand, if we keep
one of the points on the body fixed the only thing the body can do is to change its orientation (see
figure 4). Thus with a point fixed, the only possible motion of a rigid body is a rotation.
A question that arises now is how many variables do we need to specify the general motion of a
rigid body. It requires three variables - x, y and z coordinates of the point that is translated - to
describe the translation, and three more - angle of rotation about each axis - to represent the
rotation. You can see that in general a rigid body would require six variables to describe its motion.
However, if one of its points is fixed, three variables are sufficient to specify its rotation. So we
conclude a rigid body needs six parameters to describe its motion.
For simplicity, in the beginning we are going to focus on rigid moving with its one point fixed. Thus it
will change only by changing its orientation. We will further simplify the problem by considering
rotation about an axis fixed in space. In the next step, we will allow the axis to translate but without
changing its orientation. Finally we will also let the orientation of the axis change. Thus we will
increase the complexity of the problem gradually.
Dynamics of rigid body: The dynamics of a rigid body is best described by considering its angular
momentum. You can think of angular momentum as the rotational counter part of linear momentum.
This quantity is central to describing rotational motion of a rigid body. So let us first spend some time
in understanding this quantity. Although we are introducing angular momentum here in the context
of rigid bodies, the treatment below is quite general.
For a single particle moving with linear momentum at a distance from the origin the angular
momentum is defined as
You can immediately see that it is an origin-dependent quantity. If we calculate it with respect to
some other point, it will come out to be different. If a particle of mass m is moving in a plane then
using the polar coordinates for it, it is easily shown that its angular momentum is . Let
us now find out what is the rate of change of angular moment? It is calculated below.
With , where is the force on the particle, the equation above is
simplified to
Thus rate of change of angular momentum is equal to the torque applied on the body. From the
equation above, the law of conservation of angular momentum follows immediately: If the applied
torque the angular momentum does not change, i.e. it is a constant. The equation
is the angular momentum equivalent of Newton 's IInd law. Let us now illustrate the ideas presented
so far with the example of a conical pendulum.
Example 1: A conical pendulum is like the regular pendulum with a light (mass m = 0 ) rigid rod
carrying a bob of mass m at one of its ends. The other end is fixed and the bob moves in a circle
with speed v (see figure 6). We wish to calculate the tension in the rod and the angle θ it makes
from the vertical by applying the angular momentum-torque equation.
Let us first calculate angular momentum about point O . We will use cylindrical co-ordinates
because of the symmetry of the problem. With respect to O
The vector looks as shown in figure 7, when the bob of the pendulum is in the paper plane.
So the angular momentum is perpendicular to the rod (take the dot product with
for mass m and see for yourself) and as the particle rotates the horizontal
component of are rotates with it and the vertical component remains a constant. Let us now
apply the equation
We have
We now calculate the torque acting on the pendulum. There are two forces, the tension and the
weight , acting on the particle as shown in figure 8.
But passes through O and does not give any torque. Thus
Substituting these in the angular momentum-torque equation then gives
The angular momentum-torque equation therefore gives us the angle θ that the pendulum makes
with the vertical. How do we find the tension T ? On the other hand, applying Newton 's second Law
we get
giving
These equations give us both T and θ, but the equation gives only the angular
relationship. Does this mean that the angular-momentum torque equation is not equivalent to
Newton 's second law? The answer is that it is. It so happens that in applying the equation about O,
when cross products are taken, some components of the force do not contribute
to the torque and drop out of the equation. For example in this case becomes zero. To get
full solution, therefore, we now apply about point A. Taking A as the origin we have
Since all the quantities in are constants, we have
Let us calculate the torque about A. With A as the origin, the forces are given as
Therefore
which gives
Thus applying about two different points gives exactly the same solution as that obtained
from . Thus the two ways of solving the problem are equivalent. Through this example I
have shown you (a) the origin dependence of , and (b) equivalence of and
Let me now illustrate conservation of angular momentum by a well known example: that of Kepler's
Law of equal area concept in equal time. Accordingly, when planets are going around the sun, the
rate at which their position vector from the sun sweeps the area is a constant. Recall from the
lecture on polar coordinates that for a particle moving under a radial force, we had obtained that
is a constant. This is nothing but two times the rate of area sweep by the radius vector. We
now want to get this law from the conservation of angular momentum.
For a planet, we know that the force is in redial direction. So that the torque
Thus
Since , its constancy means
which is Kepler's second law.
After this initial demonstration of with a single particle, we move on to a system of many
particles. It is really a system of many particles that we are dealing with in rigid-body dynamics.
Angular Momentum of a collection of particles: If there are many particles then the total angular
momentum about a point O is the sum of individual angular momenta of each particle about O .
Thus
As for the angular momentum of a single particle, the angular momentum of a many-particle system
is also origin-dependent. (Question: Under what conditions will the angular momentum be
independent of the origin?)
Now recall that the kinetic energy for a collection of particles is the sum of the kinetic energy of their
centre of mass (CM) and the kinetic energy of particles with respect to the CM. Interestingly the
angular momentum of a many-particle system can be expressed in the same manner. Thus the total
angular momentum of a collection of particles is equal to the angular momentum of the CM plus the
angular momentum of particles about the CM. Let us now prove it. To do so express the position
vector and the velocity of a particle as
where refer to the position and velocity of the CM and the position and
velocity of ith particle with respect to the CM. Now the total angular momentum can be writes as
However, by definition of the CM, . Therefore the second and
the last term in the expression above do not contribute. The remaining terms are written as
where M is the total mass of the system. This is a remarkable result, and as we will see, facilitates
calculations involving rigid-body dynamics a lot. Keep in mind though that this result is true only with
for the CM. For an arbitrary point O' in the body, we cannot write
because depends explicitly on the definition of the CM. We will later use this
fact to obtain the parallel axis theorem that you may have learnt in your previous classes. The
theorem is similar to the transfer theorem of the second-moment of an area.
The relationship also tells us that if the total momentum of a system of

particles is zero, its angular momentum will be independent of the origin. I leave the simple proof for
you to work out.
Example: Take a bicycle wheel of radius R rolling along the ground and assume all its mass M is
concentrated along the rim. If it is rolling without slipping then its motion is as follows: its CM moves
with speed V along a straight line and the wheel rotates about the CM with angular speed
so that the point on ground is at rest. We want to find its angular momentum in a frame stuck to the
ground such that the wheel is moving along its x-axis see figure 9).
The angular momentum of the wheel about its CM is given as
So angular momentum about the origin O1 (see figure 9) would be
On the other hand, if we were to calculate the angular momentum about O2 (see figure 9) it would
come out to be
Notice that in both the cases we have added the angular momentum of the CM and that about the
CM. It is because their directions come out to be the same (negative z direction). One must be
careful about these things because angular momentum is a vector quantity. Having introduced you
to the concept of angular momentum, I now discuss about the rate of its change for a many-particle
system where the particles are interacting with each other also.
Dynamic of a rigid body; and conservation of angular momentum: Let us now look at
in the case of a collection of particles which are interacting with each other and are also being acted
upon by external forces.
But ( s the total force, i.e. the sum of external and internal forces on the particle).
This gives
Before simplifying this equation in terms of the external torque, let us see where does this equation
lead us for a two particle system shown in figure 10?
The two particles 1 and 2 shown in figure 10 are external forces , respectively. They
also interact with each other with particle 2 applying a force on particle 1 and particle 1 applying
a force on particle 2. We assume the forces to be following Newton 's IIIrd law so that
. Now the rate of change for this system can be written as
Thus the rate of change of angular momentum is equal to only the external torque if
or ,i.e. the force between the particles is along the line joining
them. At this point I would like you to recall that in the case of linear momentum, the rate of change
on linear momentum equals the total external force, i.e. . For
angular momentum to satisfy , the additional condition of is also needed.
Fortunately for most of the mechanical applications this is true. Let us now generalize this to the
case of a many-particle system. For such a system
Recall the trick used in the case of linear momentum that
so that
Under these conditions, i.e. if the force between the particles is along the line joining them , we get
Thus if then . Thus is the law of conservation of total angular
momentum. In the next lecture we will do a few example of its application.
We now conclude this lecture by listing the following points that we have learnt:
1. A rigid body needs six parameters to describe its general motion; three for translation and
three for rotation,
2. Dynamics of rigid body is governed by its angular momentum,
3. The angular momentum satisfies the equation
under the condition that the internal forces satisfy Newton 's IIIrd law and an additional
condition that
4.
Lecture 19 : Rotational dynamics II: Rotation about a fixed axis
Lecture 19
Rotational dynamics II: Rotation about a fixed axis
We saw in the previous lecture on rigid bodies that a rigid body in general requires six parameters to
describe its motion, and the dynamic of a rigid body is determined through its angular momentum
that satisfies the equation , where is the applied torque on the body. Further,
means that is a constant.
In this lecture I start with an example of the conservation of angular momentum involving two
particles. I again show that a direct application of Newton 's laws and a solution through the
conservation of angular momentum give the same answer.
Example 1: There is a rigid massless rod of length b held at point O carrying a mass m2 at its other
end. Let the y-coordinate of m2 be a. Another mass m1 comes parallel to the x-axis and hits m2 and
the two masses get stuck together (see figure 1). Question is at what speed will the rod rotate?
Let us apply the conservation of angular momentum to the system of two masses about point O.
This is because the only external force acts at O so the torque about O is zero and therefore the
angular momentum about O is conserved. Since the particles are moving in the xy plane, their
angular momentum is going to be in the z direction. So we write the unit vector explicitly and work in
terms of numbers (both positive and negative) only. Assume that the angular velocity of the rod after
the mass m1 gets stuck with it is ω. To apply angular momentum conservation we calculate the
angular momentum of the system before and after collision and equate them.
Initial angular momentum about O = m1 va
Final angular momentum = (m1 + m2 )b2 ω
Equating the two gives
Let us now see if the conventional force analysis also gives the same answer. The incoming mass
m1 comes in with momentum m1v. Now after m2 is hit, it cannot have any movement parallel to the
rod because the rod is rigid, i.e. the rod is capable of generating enough tension (impulse) in it to
make the component of momentum parallel to the rod zero. On the other hand, there is no force
perpendicular to the rod so the momentum component p in that direction remains unchanged
after the hit. Now
After the masses get stuck together, p remains the same. Thus the new speed v' acquired by the
masses will be such that
This gives
which is the same as obtained by angular momentum conservation. Thus again showing the
equivalence of the two methods.
With all this preparation, let us now start with the simplest motion of a rigid body that is the rotation
of a rigid body about an axis fixed in space. So the axis is neither translating nor rotating. Without
any loss of generality, let us call this axis the z-axis. In this case the body has only one degree of
freedom and the only variable that we need to describe the motion of the body is the angle of
rotation about the axis. Further, the only relevant component of angular momentum in this case is
the component along the z-axis. Note that there may be other components of angular momentum
but their change is accounted for by torques applied on the axis to keep it fixed in space. Calculation
of such torques will be discussed in later lectures. Suffices here is to say that these torques arise
out of the constraint forces that enforce the constraint of the axis being fixed in space.
Shown in figure 2 is a rigid body rotating about the z-axis with an angular speed ω. Also shown
there is the position and velocity vector of one of its constituent particles of mass mi in a plane
perpendicular to the rotation axis. We wish to calculate the z component of the angular momentum.
The z component will be given as
For a particle at distance ρi from the z-axis and its radius vector making an angle Φi from the x-axis
so that
Calling the moment of inertial about the rotation axis, we can write
Depending on the direction of ω, angular momentum about an axis could have negative or positive
values because it is a vector quantity. The convention we take is the right-hand convention; Let the
thumb of one's right hand point in the positive z direction; if the rotation of the body is in the same
(opposite) direction as the fingers, ω is positive (negative).
Having defined the moment of inertia about an axis, we make a few comments on it. First thing we
notice about it is that it depends on the perpendicular distance of point masses from the axis of
rotation. So no matter where we take the origin of the coordinate system, the moment of inertia of a
rigid body about an axis is always going to be the same. Secondly, for continuously distribute mass
moment of inertia is calculated as the integral
where ρ is the perpendicular distance of a small mass element dm taken in the body (see figure 3).
Finally, for planar objects the moment of inertia is the same as the second moment of an area
except that the area is replaced by the mass.
We now calculate moment of inertia of some objects.
A rod at an angle from the axis of rotation passing through its centre: This is shown in figure 4.
The length of the rod is l and its mass m . It is at an angle θ from the axis of rotation.
We take a small mass element of length ds at a distance s from the origin. It is at a distance
from the axis of rotation. Then
Thus for a rod rotating about its perpendicular passing through its centre is .
Exercise: Calculate the moment of inertia of a disc rotating about an axis passing through its centre
and perpendicular to it.
Moment of inertia of disc about one of its diameters: Shown in figure 5 is a disc of mass M and
radius R rotating about its diameter which lies on the y-axis.
To calculate the moment of inertia I take a strip of lengths width dx at distance x from the y-axis, the
axis of rotation. Its mass is (see figure 5). Thus
The integration can be carried out easily by substituting and gives
Moment of inertia of a sphere about one of its diameters: A sphere of mass M and radius R is
shown in figure 6. To calculate its moment of inertia, we take a cylindrical shell of radius ρ
and thickness dρ (see figure 6). The mass of this shell is given by
Therefore the moment of inertia is
By substituting , this is an easy integral to perform and gives the result
Let us now recapture what we have done so far. We have looked at the angular momentum of a
body rotating about a fixed axis. We find that angular momentum LZ about an axis (denoted as the
z-axis) is given as LZ = IZ ω and, depending upon the sense of rotation, can take positive as well as
negative values. We have also calculated IZ for some standard objects about an axis. We now go
on to study the equation of motion satisfied by LZ . The equation satisfied by LZ is
where is the component of the external torque along the axis of rotation. If the external torque is
zero, the angular momentum is conserved. You can observe the effect of conservation of angular
momentum easily at home.
Sit on a revolving chair holding a brick (or something similar) in each of your hands and keep your
arms stretched. Start revolving the chair and then pull your arms in. You will observe that you start
revolving much faster. This happens because when you pull the arms in, the masses that you are
holding come closer to the axis of rotation resulting in a reduction in the value of the moment of
inertia. However, since there is no external torque on the system, the angular momentum cannot
change. Thus if the moment of inertia decreases, the angular speed must increase in order to keep
L = Iω constant. This is precisely what you observe. You should also repeat the experiment holding
different weights. When do you observe the rotational speed to increase the largest? Let us now
solve an example of applying the angular momentum conservation principle.
Example: A man starts walking on the edge of a circular platform with a speed v with respect to the
platform (see figure 7). The platform is free to rotate. What is the rotational speed of the platform?
Mass of the platform is M , its radius is R and the mass of the man is m .
Since there is no external torque, the angular momentum of the system about the axis of rotation
must be conserved. Thus as the man starts walking, the platform starts rotating the other way. Since
the speed of man with respect to the platform is v , his speed in the ground frame would be (v –
ωR) . Thus the angular momentum of the man is
At the same time, the angular momentum of the platform is
where the minus sign shows that the angular momentum of the platform is in the direction opposite
to that of the man's angular momentum. By conservation of angular momentum
which gives
Having learnt about the angular momentum, its equation of motion and the conservation of angular
momentum for rotations about a fixed axis, we now discuss the kinetic energy and the work-energy
theorem for a rigid body rotating with angular speed w about a fixed axis.
Kinetic energy and work-energy theorem for a rigid-body rotating about a fixed axis:
The kinetic energy of a rigid body rotating with angular speed ω is obtained by calculating
the energy of small mass element in the body and adding it up. This mass element is
rotating in a plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation. This gives (using the notation of
figure 2)
The corresponding work-energy theorem for the motion considered here is that the change
in kinetic energy is equal to the work done on the body. Let us first calculate the work done
on a body, which can only rotate about an axis, when an external force is applied on it. To
do this, I would first like you to prove a result (look at figure 2 for reference): when a body
rotates by an angle Δθ about an axis in the unit vector direction , the corresponding
change in position of a particle in the body at position vector is
The total work done on the body by a net external force composed of forces acting at
each point is
By using , we can write the work done as
where τZ is the component of the external torque along the axis of rotation. Thus the total
work done is
Now the work energy theorem can be expressed as follows:
This pretty much concludes what all I have to say about the rotations about a fixed axis.
One question that may be asked at this point is: Why is it what describing dynamics in
term of angular momentum, torque etcetera rather than momentum and force is more
useful in discussing rotational motion. This is because in rotational motion, force, momenta
etcetera are distributed and taking their moments by considering the angular momenta and
torques automatically takes care of this distribution. We conclude this lecture by drawing a
comparison between linear and rotational motion about a fixed axis.
Linear motion Rotational motion about a fixed axis

Momentum p Angular momentum L
Impulse Impulse
This correspondence will help in understanding and getting relationships to solve most of
the problems involving rotations about a fixed axis, particularly if you have solved many
problems involving linear momentum.
Lecture 20 : Rigid body dynamics III: Rotation and Translation
Lecture 20
Rigid body dynamics III: Rotation and Translation
We have seen in the past two lectures how do we go about solving the rigid body dynamics problem by
considering the rate of change of angular momentum. In the previous lecture, we concentrated on rotation
about a fixed axis and solved problems involving conservation of angular momentum about that axis. In
this lecture we consider what happens where an external torque is applied and also when the axis is
allowed to translate parallel to itself.
Let us first take the case when the axis is stationary and a torque is applied. Take for instance your pen or
a scale and hold it lightly at one of its ends so as to pivot it there. Raise the other end so that the scale is
horizontal and then leave it. You will see that the scale swings down. I would like to calculate the speed of
its CM when the scale is vertical after being released from horizontal position (see figure 1). Assume that
there is no loss due to friction. In this case I will solve this problem in two ways and also comment on a
wrong way.
I take the mass of the scale to be m and its length l. Then its moment of inertia about one of its ends is
I first solve the problem using energy conservation. Since there is no loss due to friction the total
mechanical energy is conserved. Therefore the total mechanical energy is conserved. Let us take the
potential energy to be zero when the scale is horizontal. Since the scale starts with zero initial angular
speed, its total mechanical energy is zero. When the scale reaches the vertical position, its CM has
moved down by a distance so its potential energy is . If its angular speed at that position is
ω, then by conservation of energy
which gives
I now solve the problem by a direct application of torque equation. When the scale makes an angle θ from
the horizontal (see figure 2), the torque on it is given as
The angular momentum-torque equation then gives
Substituting and the value of I from above this leads to
This equation cannot be integrated with respect to time directly. Recall from the proof of work-energy
theorem that in such situations we change transform the equation to write it in terms of the displacement
variable, which is the angle in this case. So we write
to write the equation above as
Integrating this equation then gives
For this gives the same answer as obtained earlier. If you have noticed, what we have done
here is actually used the work-energy theorem
You may ask at this point: wouldn't the correct way of solving this problem be to equate the kinetic energy
of the CM to the change in the potential energy. This would lead to
The reason why this answer is incorrect is the following. Recall from our previous lecture that the most
general motion of a rigid body is a translation plus a rotation. So while it is true that the CM is moving, the
scale is also rotating at the same time. We represent the combination of the two motions as a translation
of the CM and a rotation about an axis passing through the CM. Why we split the motion of the scale as a
combination of the translation of its CM and a rotation about the CM - and not that of any other point in the
body - will be discussed in detail below. For now it is sufficient to say that by doing so the kinetic energy
can be written conveniently as (KE of the CM plus KE about the CM). So the true K.E of the scale is
where is the moment of inertia about the CM. Using the relationship this gives
the same kinetic energy as that used above in applying the energy conservation method. This correct
approach then gives the same answer as obtained above.
An interesting problem related to the one solved above is as follows. Sometimes if a book you are holding
slips out your hand, it usually falls with its upper face down (see figure 3). You can try this at home and
see for yourself. In fact there is an interesting book which has a title based on this observation. It is
entitled "Why toast lands jelly side down" and is authored by Robert Ehrlich (Universities press,
Hyderabad 1999). Let us try to understand this observation.
When the book falls its angular acceleration α immediately after it slips off the hand is calculated
approximately as given below
Here m is the mass of the book and l its length. I call it an approximate expression because in our
calculation we have assumed the book to be in horizontal position. It will slip off when or for
small angles θ ~ µ, where m is the coefficient of friction between the book and the hand. Starting with zero
initial angular speed, let the angular speed of the book when it slips out of the hand be ω . Then
Taking µ = 0.5, g = 10ms- 2 and l = 20cm = 0.2m , we get
ω = 8.7 rad s- 1
After the book has come out of the hands, there is no external torque on it about its CM so it falls rotating
with a constant angular speed of about 8.7rad s- 1. Keep in mind that the sense and amount of rotation of
a rigid body is the same irrespective of the point about which its rotation is considered. So although before
slipping out of the hand, I did the calculation for its angular speed taking its edge on the hand as the axis,
after it comes out of the hand, I consider its motion as the translation of its CM and rotation about its CM.
Let us stake a typical height of about 1m from which the book falls. Then the time it takes to reach the
ground is
Thus the angle through which the book rotates by the time it reaches the ground is
If we add to this angle the initial rotation of θ = µ = 0.5, the angle increases to about 250°. The angle of
rotation of course varies in a range but it is around 180°.You see that the book has just the right angular
speed and the time of fall for it to turn by around 180°. That is precisely what we observe.
Rotation of a rigid body combined with translation of the axis parallel to itself:
Let us now introduce translation of the rotational axis parallel to itself - it may even accelerate - and ask
what kind on motion is going to follow. So for example there may be a rod on a horizontal table and is hit
by an impulse one end, and we may be interested in its subsequent motion. I general it could be a rigid
body of general shape on which we apply a force. We split the motion into a translation of the CM of the
body and rotation about an axis passing through the CM. By doing so the equation of motion for the
translational motion of the CM is very easy. It is
Here is the total momentum of the body; M is its mass; the acceleration of the CM and
the total applied force. With this equation we know how the CM of the body translates. Next we
wish to find the rotation of the body with respect to an axis passing through the CM (recall that the most
general motion of a rigid body is translation of a point and rotation about that point). But the question is:
can we apply
where is the angular momentum about the CM and is the applied torque about the
axis of rotation passing through the CM. I raise this question because in general the CM will also be
accelerating and therefore with respect to the CM, there will be a fictitious force that may also give rise to
a fictitious torque which is in addition to the applied torque . However, it is easy to see that
such a fictitious torque about the CM will always be zero. This is because the fictitious force effectively
acts at the CM itself. Because of this reason, there is one more point about which the torque due to the
fictitious force vanishes: this is the point that accelerates towards the CM. Thus the equation above can
be applied safely about these two points. There is also a third point about which the above equation is
valid. This is the point that does not accelerate at all. Let me now prove these statements.
Shown in figure 4 is a rigid body performing a general motion, i.e. it is both translating as well as rotating.
For convenience we have shown the body in two dimensions. Two points J and i of the body are also
shown. These points are also moving with the body. We now calculate the rate of change of the angular
momentum about point J . This is done below.
where all the terms have their standard meaning and the subscript (iJ) denotes the quantity being
calculated for point i with respect to point J . Denoting the velocity and acceleration of point i about the
origin O as , respectively, and that of J as , we have
With , where is the position vector of the CM with
respect to J , we get
If we want the rate of change of the angular momentum to depend only on the applied torque calculated
about J, we should have
That will happen under the following three conditions:
I have just shown you that irrespective of the whether point J is accelerating, rotating or performing some
general motion, the equation
can be applied about J if it satisfies one of the three conditions obtained above. Notice that in under these
conditions the right-hand side has only the externally applied torque. Thus if we choose one of these
points to apply the angular momentum-torque equation, we do not have to worry about any fictitious
torques arising because we are sitting on an accelerating point. We have been applying the angular
momentum-torque equation about points satisfying condition I above; it includes stationary points also. Of
the other two points, it is always safer to apply the equation about the CM (condition II ). This is because
of the difficulty in ensuring that a point is accelerating towards the CM (condition III ), although in some
situations it may be easy. We will discuss one such case below. We now solve some simple examples to
illustrate what we have learnt above.
Example 1: A uniform rod of mass m and length l is on a smooth horizontal table (friction = 0) and is hit at
one of its ends so that an impulse J is imparted to it in its perpendicular direction (see figure 5). What is its
subsequent motion?
As the rod is hit, its CM will start moving with a velocity
At the same time the rod also starts rotating. Although the CM will be accelerating during the impact, we
can apply the angular momentum-torque equation about it with only external torque in the equation. If the
angular speed of the rod after the impact is ω, it is given by
Note that in the sentence above, I have said 'angular speed of the rod' and not 'angular speed of the rod
about the CM because the sense and amount of rotation about any point in the body is the same, as was
discussed in a previous lecture. The position and orientation of the rod some time after the impact is also
shown in figure 5.
Example 2: A wheel of mass m and radius R is sliding on a smooth surface (No rolling) with speed V. It
then hits a very rough surface so that it starts rolling (see figure 6). What is it rolling speed?
Let the rolling speed of the wheel be V1 . As soon as the wheel hits the rough surface, it gets an impulse J
at its point on the surface in the direction opposite to its velocity. This reduces its speed and also makes it
rotate. It rolls if the speed V1 of its CM is equal to ωR , where ω is the rolling speed it gains after hitting
the rough surface. The change in the CM speed is given by
Applying the angular-momentum torque equation about the CM, we get
With the condition of rolling, , the above two equations give
I would like you to repeat the same exercise for a disc.
The problem can also be solved by applying conservation of the point of impact on ground, because the
impulse gives zero torque about that point. The initial angular momentum of the wheel with respect to that
point is mVR . The final angular momentum is (angular momentum of the CM plus angular momentum
about the CM). This comes out to be (mV1R + mR2ω) . Equating this to mVR and using the rolling
condition gives the same answer as above. A warning: keep in mind that the torque is being taken with
respect to the point on ground and not the point on the wheel that is touching the ground. Doing that will
not be correct because at the time of impact the point on the wheel is accelerating in the direction
opposite to .
I now solve a problem that involves, in addition to the equations above, energy conservation also.
Example 3: A rod of mass m and length l is held making an angle Φ from the horizontal at a height h from
the floor (see figure 7). When dropped from rest, what will be its linear and angular speed after it rebounds
from the floor? Assume no energy is lost during the impact with the floor.
When the rod hits the floor, it receives an impulse J from the ground in the vertically up direction. Although
the rod is also being acted upon by its weight, we neglect its effect during impact (see discussion in the
lecture on momentum). Since all the forces are in the vertical direction, the CM of the rod also moves only
vertically. Before hitting the floor, the speed of the CM is and the angular speed of the rod is zero.
Let the rebound speed of the CM be V and the angular speed of the rod after rebounding be ω. Then
similar to the example above, these quantities are related as (keep in mind that we are dealing with vector
quantities so their signs have to be properly accounted for)
These are two equations for three unknowns: V, ω and J. We therefore need one more equation. This is
provided by energy conservation. We express the kinetic energy of the rod after it rebounds as the sum of
the kinetic energy of its CM and the kinetic energy about its CM. Thus immediately after the impact,
energy conservation gives
Now we have three equations that can be solved for the three unknowns. This is left for you to do.
Question you might now ask is if we could use the principle angular momentum and energy conservation
directly to solve this problem in a manner similar to what we did at the end of the last example. We would
like to apply the conservation of angular momentum about the point of impact on the ground because
torque due to the impulse about this point vanishes. Although there is another external force - the weight
of the rod - acting on the system, its effect during the impact can be ignored because very short duration
of impact. Thus we can say that the angular momentum about the point of impact is conserved. This gives
(left as an exercise for you)
This is the same equation that is obtained by combining the first two equations above. Thus we obtain the
same answer by this method also.
I end this lecture by giving you an exercise.
Exercise: A disc of mass m and radius R is made to roll on a rough surface by applying a force F at its
centre. If it does not slip on the floor, i.e. it does pure rolling, find its acceleration by applying methods
developed in this lecture.
Lecture 21 : Rotational dynamics IV: Angular velocity and angular momentum
Lecture 21
Rotational dynamics IV: Angular velocity and angular momentum
In the previous three lectures, we have dealt primarily with rotation about a fixed axis or an axis
moving parallel to itself. What we saw in those lectures was that dynamics of a rigid body is
described by and in the absence of the angular momentum is a
conserved. In the case of fixed axis rotation, the relationship between the angular momentum and
the angular speed was quite straight forward in that and all that was done in those
problems was to change the magnitude of ω to change L. But the rotational motion is much more
interesting than that. For example is a vector so it could change direction because of applied
torque with or without its magnitude being affected. How the changing direction of affects the
orientation of a rigid body is one question we should answer if we wish to understand the motion of
a rigid body. To start with, I want to point out to you that rotational motion is sometimes not what one
would expect naively.
You must have played with a top. If it is not spinning and we try to make it stand on its pivot, it falls
sideways. On the other hand, if it is given a spin and then put on its pivot point, it does not fall but
starts to move about, what is called precession, a vertical axis passing through its pivot point. This is
shown in figure 1. Obviously the precession of the top has something to do with its spin.
My second observation is from something that is seen in science museums. You can also make it
easily in your local workshop. Take a track with many soft curves on it and let three different shape
rollers roll on it. You may want to keep the track slightly tilted so that the rollers roll by themselves.
Question is which of the rollers will be able to negotiate all the curves.
I make the third observation on a rectangular box of sweets (empty of course) or any similar box.
Put a rubber-band around it so that its lid does not come off. Hold the box at a height with one of its
faces perpendicular to the vertical, give it a spin and let it drop (see figure 3). Observe how its spin
changes when it is falling down. You will find that in two out of three possible ways of holding the
box, its spin will remain essentially unchanged whereas in one case it will start wobbling. On the
other hand, if the box is dropped without giving it a spin, it comes down in the same orientation.
What does the spin do to it? We wish to understand this.
In all three cases we see that when an object is given a spin its motion is very different compared to
when it is not spinning. This happens because the angular momentum of the object due to its spin
changes direction during the motion and the orientation of the body changes accordingly. So we
now really have to get into the vector nature of angular momentum and relate it to the parameters -
the angle and the angular speed / velocity - of the body. I develop this structure of three-dimensional
rigid-body dynamics step-by-step. The first question we address in this development is if the angle
of rotation θ can be expressed as a vector ? And if the answer is yes, what is its direction?
The answer to the question whether an angle of rotation can be treated as a vector is in the
negative. This is because it fails to satisfy a fundamental property - that the addition of vectors is
commutative - of vector addition. Thus if we make two rotations of angles θ1 and θ2 about two
different axes, the end results will not be the same if the order of rotations is changed. This is
depicted in figure 4 where I show a rectangular box that is to be rotated by 90° about the x and the y
axes. The x and y axes are in the plane of the paper and pass through the centre of the box; the z-
axis is coming out of the paper. The results are different if (a) I do the rotation about the x-axis first
and then follow it with a rotation about the y-axis, and (b) I do the rotation about the y-axis first and
then follow it with a rotation about the x-axis. Thus θ1 and θ2 cannot be treated as vectors because
.
Mathematically let us take a rod of length l lying along the x-axis with one of its ends at the origin so
that the (xyz) coordinates of its other end are (l, 0, 0). Keeping its end at the origin fixed, the rod is
rotated about the x and the y axes in the same manner as the box in figure 4. If rotated about the x-
axis first the end still has coordinates (l, 0, 0). Now the rotation about the y-axis makes the rod align
with the z-axis with the new coordinates of its end being (0, 0, - l) . Let us perform the rotations in
the other order now. The first rotation is performed about the y-axis and makes the rod align with the
z-axis with the new coordinates of its end being rod (0, 0, - l) . Now the rotation about the x-axis
makes the rod align with the y-axis and the final coordinates of its end are (0, l, 0) . Thus we see
that two rotations have absolutely different effect on the orientation of a body depending on their
order. This is demonstrated in figure 5. The conclusion therefore is that rotations in general cannot
be treated as vectors .
Although rotations by a finite angle are no vector quantities, rotations by infinitesimal angles Δθ are.
This also makes the derivative a vector quantity. We therefore call this quantity angular
velocity rather than angular speed. Let me first show you through a simple example that infinitesimal
rotations do satisfy the commutative property of vector addition and then go on to assign a direction
to such rotations.
Let me again take a rod lying along the x-axis with one end fixed at the origin and the other at
(l,0,0). However, this time I consider infinitesimal rotations about the y and the z axes. I do so
because I want both the rotations to cause change in the orientation of the rod; first rotation about
the x-axis does not do that. Before I present the calculations, I would like you to recall from the first
lecture how different components of a vector change when the frame is rotated. I would be making
use of those relationships now with one change: rotating a vector by an angle Δθ about an axis is
same as viewing it from a frame rotated by the angle -Δθ about the same axis. I perform a rotation
of the rod about the y-axis by an angle Δθy and that about the z-axis by angle Δθz. Let me first
consider the case of rotation about the y-axis that is followed by a rotation about the z-axis. Rotation
of the rod about the y-axis gives the new coordinates of it free end as
Now rotate the rod about z-axis to get coordinates of its free end as
Let us now do it the other way. Rotation about the z-axis gives
Now give a rotation about the y-axis to get
When we compare the two boxed results above, we find that the coordinates of the end point of the
rod come out to be the same. We conclude that two infinitesimal rotations will give the same final
result irrespective of the order in which they are applied. Thus infinitesimal rotations can be treated
as vectors . But what about the direction of rotation? To assign a direction, notice that the change in
the position vector of the end coordinate of the rod considered above can be written as
where I have written the second line above to emphasize that the order in which infinitesimal
rotations are performed does not affect the end result of these operations. The equations above
suggest that an infinitesimal rotation about an axis be assigned a direction parallel to the axis
following the right hand convention: If the thumb of the right hand points in the direction of the
infinitesimal rotation, the movement of fingers gives the sense of rotation. With this definition, the
change in the position vector of a point after it is rotated by an infinitesimal angle Δθ about an axis in
the direction of unit vector (sense of rotation given by right hand convention) is given as
It is obvious that the vector . The corresponding derivative with respect time is called
the angular velocity, usually denoted by . Thus
I now point out that although the above equation is written for a position vector, there is nothing in its
derivation that limits it to position vectors only. It is in fact true for any vector as can be easily proved
by replacing the (xyz) coordinates by the corresponding components of the vector in the derivation
above. Thus if a vector is given an infinitesimal rotation , its will change by
This is shown pictorially in figure 6.
Let us now see how much does a vector change when we apply two infinitesimal rotations
about two different axes. Let the vector be denoted by after the first rotation and
by after the second one. Then we have
thereby showing that for several infinitesimal rotations the final effect can indeed be expressed by
adding the effect of each one of them.
Next we consider the rate of change of a vector rotating with an angular velocity . It is obtained
as follows:
This is the rate of change of a vector only due to its rotation. If it changes additionally due to
some other causes, that has to be added to the above change separately. If we take the vector
to be the position vector , we get the formula
for linear velocity of a particle due to pure rotation of its position vector.
You may ask this point why is it that we want to take as vector quantities. The answer is
that we in doing our calculations, we should know whether a quantity is a scalar or a vector or
something else so that mathematical operations on it can be appropriately defined. For example,
now that we know that is a vector quantity, we can take its components and deal with them
independently. Let me give you an example.
Example 1: A ball is given a spin at speed w and then put on a rough floor with making an angle
q with the vertical. When the ball eventually rolls, what would be its rolling speed (see figure 7)?
In solving this problem, I make use of the vector nature of and split it into its two components. It is
the horizontal component that is responsible for making the ball roll. The vertical component
does not contribute to rolling, as you well know. Further, this component eventually goes to
zero due to friction. So the question is: if a sphere rotating with angular speed is kept on a
rough floor with axis of rotation horizontal, what is its find rolling speed. I will let you figure that out.
The point that is emphasized here is that knowing that is a vector quantity helped us to solve the
problem easily.
Now that we know is a vector, the next question we ask is: how does change when an external
torque is applied on a body? So far we have learnt that external torques change angular momentum
. So to know how changes, we should know the relationship between . We derive
this relationship next.
Angular momentum of a rigid body rotating with angular velocity : We now derive the
relationship between the angular momentum of a body rotating in space with one point fixed. That
means the body is not translating and has only three degrees of freedom. By definition, the angular
momentum
For a rigid body rotating with one point fixed, I have derived above that . With
we get
This gives the three components of the angular momentum to be
This is usually written in the matrix form
The (3 x 3) matrix in the equation above is known as the moment of inertia tensor. Its diagonal terms
are the moments of inertia about the x , y and the z -axis, respectively. The off-diagonal terms
are known as the products of inertia. The values of the moments and products of inertia depend on
the set of axes chosen.
So you see that relationship between is quite involved. Luckily, for a rigid body, for each
point one can find a set of axes about so that products of inertia about that point vanish. These are
known as the principal axes. Thus for the principal set of axes at a point
These axes are attached with the body and rotate with it. However, the principal axes offer an
advantage when dealing with the angular momentum of a rigid body. At a given time, if I calculate the
components of the angular momentum by taking the rigid-body to be rotating in the principal axes
frame at that instant, they turn out to be simply Lx =Ixx ωx , Ly =Iyy ωy and Lz =Izz ωz . Thus the
angular momentum of the body is given as
at any given instant. It is easily seen from the expression above that in general the angular
momentum and the angular velocity are not parallel; they will be parallel only if , i.e. if
all three moments of inertia about the principal axes are equal. This is shown in figure 8 in two
dimensions.
Let me now solve an example.
Example 2: A thin massless rod of length 2l has a point mass m at both its ends. It is rotating with
angular speed w about a vertical axis passing through its centre and at an angle θ from it, as shown in
figure 9. Calculate its angular momentum.
We will apply the formula for angular momentum derived above. It is easy to see that at the centre of
the rod, the principal axes are: one axis parallel to the rod and two of them perpendicular to it. These
are shown in the figure above. Notice that the principal axes rotate with the body. The moment of
inertia with respect to the principal axes shown in figure 9 are
The components of the angular velocity along the principal axes are
Thus the angular momentum is given as
This is also shown in figure 9. It is clear from the figure that as the body rotates so does its angular
momentum vector. Thus the angular momentum of the body changes with time although its magnitude
remains unchanged.
I end this lecture by asking you to solve a similar problem.
Exercise: A rectangular thin sheet of sides a and b is rotating about one of its diagonals (see figure
10) with angular speed ω. The mass of the sheet is m. What is its angular momentum? Express it in
terms of the principal axes unit vectors.
Lectures 22 & 23 : Rotational dynamics V: Kinetic energy, angular momentum and torque in 3-dimensions
Lectures 22 & 23
Rotational dynamics V: Kinetic energy, angular momentum and torque in 3-dimensions
You learnt in the previous lecture is that the angular velocity is a vector quantity pointing
in the direction of the axis of rotation. Any vector that is rotating about also changes
direction. Thus the vector changes even if its magnitude is constant. If the vector is then
its rate of change purely on the basis of rotation is
Thus the velocity of a rotating particle at position from the origin is
I also derived the general expression for the angular momentum, which is given as
Here are the moments of inertia about the x, y and the z axes, respectively.
The off diagonal elements like Ixy are the products of inertia. A simplification in the
expression above arises by employing the principal axes for which the products of inertia
vanish. For convenience in writing, the principal axes are usually denoted by (1,2,3 ) instead
of (x,y,z). Using this notation the angular momentum vector can be written in a simple form
as
where ω1 , ω2 and ω3 are the components of the angular velocity along the principal axes. I
now derive the expression for kinetic energy for a rigid body rotating with one point fixed.
Kinetic energy of a rotating rigid body: I consider a rigid body rotating with angular
velocity . Its kinetic energy T is calculated as follows
Substituting for of the velocities above and making use of some identities of
vector products we get
In the principal axes therefore
This is the expression for the kinetic energy in terms of the principal moments of inertia and
the components of angular velocity along the principal set of axes. Having obtained the
general expressions for the angular momentum and kinetic energy of a rigid body, we now
study the dynamics of a rigid body through the angular-momentum torque equation. Along
the way I will explain the three observations that I had started my previous lecture with.
Dynamics of a rigid body: Dynamics of a rigid body is governed by the equation
and it is this equation that governs everything about the rigid-body rotation. What makes the
motion of a rigid-body interesting is that there is a fantastic interplay between the angular
momentum, angular velocity of a rigid body with or without an applied torque. For example if
the angular velocity and the angular momentum of a rigid body are not parallel, the
vector would rotate about and that would make change. However, if there is no torque
applied on the body, angular momentum cannot change. Therefore to compensate the
change in arising from its rotation, the angular velocity itself must change. Changing
would make body rotate in a different way and this goes on. It is thus this interplay
between and that makes a rigid body move in seemingly counterintuitive ways.
As a body rotates, its angular momentum changes on two counts: first because in general
and are not parallel and therefore rotates about . With
and
the rate of change of only due to its rotation about is given as
If the components ω1 , ω2 and ω3 were also changing, I would have to add an additional
term on the right-hand side of the expression above to take care of that. This is the second
reason for the change in angular momentum of the body. For the time being I focus on
cases where the components of along the principal axis remain unchanged. This in turn
implies that the magnitude of the angular momentum remains constant during the rotational
motion of the body. This happens when the applied torque is always perpendicular to the
angular momentum. Substituting for L1 , L2 and L3 in the equation above, I get
So at any instant the components of are
For a geometric interpretation of these equations I urge you to go back to the previous
lecture and see how we obtained the changes in the coordinates of the end of a rod rotating
infinitesimally. This gives the components of the torque required to be
To apply these equations I start with calculation of torque for the example that we solved at
the end of the previous lecture.
Example 1: A thin massless rod of length 2l has a point mass m at both its ends. It is rotating with
angular speed w about a vertical axis passing through its centre and at an angle θ from it, as shown
in figure 1. If the axis of rotation is held at its two ends by ball bearings, calculate the force that the
ball bearings apply on the axis. The ball bearings are placed symmetrically from the centre of the
rod at a distance d each.
Recall from the previous lecture that I had taken the principal axes (1,2,3 ) with (1,2) as shown in
figure 1 and axis 3 perpendicular to them. The moments of inertia about the principal axes are
The angular velocity and the angular momentum of the rod-mass system are
and
All the parameters - mass m , length l and angle θ - in the equation above are constant so the
magnitude of the angular momentum is also a constant. As such we can apply the formulae given
above to get the components of the torque to be applied as
Thus the torque needed to keep the rotating rod in its position is in the direction of principal axis 3 of
the body. As was noted above, the torque is indeed perpendicular to . The torque is provided by
the forces applied by the bearings. When the rod is in the plane of the paper, as shown in the figure,
the force would be to the left at the upper end and to the right at the lower end of the rod (see figure
1). And their magnitudes will be equal since the CM of the rod has zero acceleration. Thus the
forces provide a couple equal to . Their magnitude is
There is another method of calculating that we describe now. has one component
in the direction of and the other component

perpendicular to (see figure 2).
As the rod rotates LV remains unchanged but LH sweeps a circle with angular frequency . The
rate of change of is therefore the same as that of LH . The magnitude of the latter is ωLH . Since
at the position shown, the tip of LH is moving out of the paper, the direction of the change in LH is
also the same. This is the direction of principal axis 3. It thus follows that
in the direction of principal axis 3. For completeness I also calculate the kinetic energy of the rod-
mass system. It is
I now give you a couple of exercises similar to the problem above.
Exercise 1: In the problem above, if the axis of rotation passes through a different point than the
centre of the rod (see figure 3), what will be the forces applied by the bearings with everything else
remaining the same? ( Hint: the CM is now moving in a circle )
Exercise 2: For the rotating objects shown below in figure 4, calculate the rate of change of their
angular momentum by the two methods employed in the example above.
If you have followed the example above, and have also done the exercises suggested, then you will
be in a position to understand the explanation of two of the three observations I started my previous
lecture with. The two observations were the precession of a spinning top and only one roller of the
three shown being able to go over a curved track entirely.
Example 2: Let me take the case of the precession of a spinning top. In this case we observe that
when a spinning top is put on a floor and its lower point is held at one point, it starts precessing
about the vertical axis (see figure 5)
I take the mass of the top to be m, its moment of inertia about the spinning axis I , distance of its CM
from the pivot point l and its spinning rate to be ωs. The top's axis is making an angle θ from the
vertical. Let us take the rate of precession, i.e. the angular speed at which the top starts to rotate
about the vertical to be Ω. It is observed that Ω is usually much smaller than ωs. So in calculating
angular momentum we are going to take it as arising from the spin only and neglect any contribution
of Ω to it. The angular momentum is then along the spin axis of the top and its magnitude is
, where I is top's moment of inertia about its axis. Further, there is torque acting on the top
due to its weight. The magnitude of the torque is mgl sinθ and it is perpendicular to the plane formed
by the vertical and the spin axis (the direction of ). At the position shown in figure 5, the torque is
going into the plane of the paper. The problem then reduces to the following. A rigid body has an
angular momentum and is being acted upon by a torque of magnitude mgl sinθ perpendicular to
. What will happen to the body?
Since the angular momentum is being acted upon by a torque perpendicular to it, it changes
continuously with time with its magnitude remaining unaffected. Thus it moves on the surface of a
cone as shown in figure 6.
Let me now calculate the frequency of rotation of vector . For this I again look at the vertical LV
and horizontal LH components of the angular momentum, as shown in figure 6. The vertical
component remains unchanged and the horizontal component changes at the rate as the
vector rotates. This gives , which should be equal to the torque. Substituting
, I thus get
This is the rate at which the vector rotates. Since is attached to the top, the top also rotates at
the same rate. is then the rate of precession of the cone.
As the top precesses, its CM moves in a circle. You may now wonder where does the centripetal
force for this come from? This is provided by the horizontal reaction or the frictional force at the pivot
point. Second question you may raise is why is it that the component LH starts moving in a
horizontal circle due to the torque while the vertical component does not move in a vertical circle. In
the actual motion, it does. So in addition to the precession, the axis of the top also oscillates up and
down with very small amplitude. If you are careful in you observations, you will see this motion. This
is known as the nutation of the top. In our present treatment, we have ignored this motion and
solved the problem only to get the precession rate.
I now wish to explore if to get this answer, I could equivalently have used the equations
To do this, let me first identify the principal axes of the cone at the pivot point and label them. The
principal axes are the spin axis and two other axes perpendicular to it. These are shown and labeled
(1,2,3) in figure 7; in this position axes 1 and 2 are in the plane of the paper and axis 3 is coming out
of it.
The moments of inertia about the principal axes are . The components of
at the instant (I take it to be time t = 0 ) shown in figure 7 are
Substituting the values of moments of inertia and the angular velocity components in the equations
for the components of the torque gives
This is not the same answer as obtained earlier. Where have we gone wrong? Is the previous
answer correct or is this answer correct? We will see later that in applying the equations above, we
have not taken into account the fact that due to the spin of the top, its principal axes also spin about
axis 1 and that makes the components of along them time-dependent. For now I move on to
explain the observation about only one of the rollers being able to go over all the curves of a track.
Example 3: If you have performed the experiment, you would have seen that only roller 1 (see
figure 8) that is tapering down as we move away from its centre is able to go over all the curves. Let
me now explain that.
As a roller goes over a curve, its centre of mass moves requires a centripetal force to do so. At the
same time, the angular momentum of the roller also changes direction and that requires a torque.
Both the centripetal force and the torque are provided by the normal reaction of the track on the
rollers. These reaction forces on the three rollers are shown in figure 9.
In analyzing the motion of these rollers, I am taking them to be moving into the paper. Thus the
direction of their angular momentum is to the left, as shown in the figure. Now if these rollers have to
make a turn, the normal reactions should provide the required centripetal force in the horizontal
direction. This rules out the plain cylindrical roller (roller 2) from making any turn because both
normal reactions on it are in the vertical direction. This leaves the other two cylinders for further
consideration. For those rollers, the torque of the normal reaction forces about the CM should
change their angular momentum vector in the appropriate direction. Let us look at roller 1 first.
Roller 1: For a left turn, N1 < N2 for centripetal force. Therefore the torque generated by them is in
the direction coming out of the page. As the roller makes a left turn, the associated change in its
angular momentum also is in the direction coming out of the page, consistent with the torque
generate. For a right turn by this roller, the centripetal force is to the right so N1 > N2 . This
generates a torque about the CM that goes into the page. For the right turn, the change in the
angular momentum is also into the page, consistent with the torque generated. Thus for roller 1 , the
centripetal force and the torque generated are consistent with the centripetal force and the change
in its angular momentum. Let us now see what happens to roller 3 .
Roller 3: If roller 3 turns left, the centripetal force will be provided correctly if N1 > N2 . This however
gives a torque about the CM that is going into the page. On the other hand, during left turn the
change in the angular momentum comes out of the page. Thus the torque and the change in
angular momentum are in opposite directions. Exactly the same situation arises for a right turn.
Because of this inconsistency, the roller fails to turn at any of the curves. This example teaches us
about the centre of mass motion combined with angular momentum changes about the CM. We
now move on to discuss the general form of the equation relating the torque and the angular
momentum.
The general equation governing rotation of a rigid body:

Having dealt with situations where components of are constant, we now ask what
happens when is also changed. For this let me look at the expression for the angular
momentum in the principal axis frame again. It is
I now give a slightly different derivation for the rate of change of . In doing this derivation I
keep in mind that as a rigid body rotates, the unit vectors along its principal axes also rotate
and their rate of change is (see previous lecture)
Now I differentiate to get
Here the first term is due to the change in the components of along the principal axis and
the second term is the change in due to its rotation. Notice that we recover the formula
derived earlier if the components of do not change with time, i.e. .
Let me repeat the interpretation of the equation: at any instant we take the body rotating in
the principal axes frame at that time, i.e. the frame is frozen at its position at that time and
the body is taken to be rotating in it. To see this geometrically, let me take a two-dimensional
case. Shown in figure 10 are the principal axes 1 and 2 of a rigid body at times t and (t+ Δt) .
In time interval Δt the body and the frame attached to it rotate by an angle , and
ω1 and ω2 change to ω1 + Δω1 and ω2 + Δω2 . With these changes let me calculate
changes in the components L1 and L2 in the frame frozen at time t .
Looking at the figure, where I have shown all the changes that have taken place during the
time interval Δt , we get in the frame at time t
and
So the total change in the angular momentum is
Dividing both sides by Δt and taking proper limit gives
This gives you some idea about where this equation comes from. Of course in a more
accurate treatment, rotations about the other axes also have to be taken into account. For
infinitesimal rotations, they can all be added up and give the general equation
This gives
Each one of these rates of change should be equal to the component of the torque in that
direction .Thus
These are the most general equations governing the dynamics of a rigid body and are
known as Euler's equations. I now use it to explain the third experiment I had suggested in
the beginning of Lecture 21.
Example 4: Hold a rectangular box at a height with one of its faces perpendicular to the
vertical, give it a spin and let it drop (see figure 11). Describe its subsequent rotational
motion.
This is an example of torque-free ( ) motion because there is no torque on the box

about its centre of mass. Thus its rotational motion is governed by the equations
For a box similar to the one shown in figure 11 we would generally have I3 > I2 > I1 .
Let me first consider the case when the box is given a spin about its principal axis 1. Let me
also assume that in the process I also disturb it and give it very small angular velocities ω2
and ω3 about its axes 2 and 3, respectively. Since both ω2 and ω3 are very small, their
product is second-order in smallness and will be ignored. The Euler equations and there are
then as given below.
The first equation implies that ω1 is a constant. Let me call it the spin rate ω0 . Using this
fact the other two equations are dealt with as follows. Differentiate equation (II) with respect
to time to get
and substitute for from equation (III) to obtain
Since I3 > I2 > I1 , the equation above is of the form
Its solution is of the form
One can similarly get equation for ω3 also and see that it also has similar oscillatory
solution. This implies that as the box falls down it spins about axis 1 and oscillates about
axes 2 and 3. Since magnitudes of ω2 and ω3 are small, you see the box fall essentially
spinning only. The same thing will happen if we give initial spin about axis 3. However
something different happens when the initial spin is about axis 2. Assuming ω1 and ω3 to be
small, in this case the Euler equations take the following form right after the release of the
box.
The second equation above implies that ω2 is a constant and with I3 > I2 > I1 , the other two
equations take the form
Solution of these equations is of the form
which indicates that right after the release, the angular velocities about axes 1 and 3 will
grow very fast and take on a large value. Thus the box will start rotating about all three axes
and that is what you observe. Thus we see that a rigid body is stable when it is given a spin
about the axes having the smallest or the largest moment of inertia. However, if given a spin
about the axis with intermediate moment of inertia, it will be unstable. Next I take up the
case of precessing top that I had not solved by employing Euler's equations earlier. This is
an example where a torque is also being applied on the system
Example 5: Apply Euler's equations to a precessing top and get its precession frequency Ω.
The top has a mass m and is spinning at a rate of ωS (see figure 12). Its centre of gravity is
at a distance l from the pivot point.
I have already discussed about the principal axes of the top in example 2 above. With
the Euler's equations for the top are
Now in applying Euler's equations you have to keep in mind that the top is spinning. As such
its principle axes 2 and 3 also rotate about axis 1 with angular frequency ωS . So the
components of angular frequency and torque in the direction of these axes also change with
time. Taking time at which the position of the top is shown in figure 12 to be t = 0, I draw in
figure 13 the position of axes 2 and 3 at time t . In this figure, I have neglected the angle W t
through which the top and therefore the torque vector itself has rotated. In other words I
have assumed that . Thus the angular velocity and torque are shown where they
were at t = 0 .
Looking at figure 13, it is clear that the components of the angular velocity and the torque
are
Substituting these in the Euler's equation for the top gives
The first of these equations gives ω1 = constant = ωS. The other two equations give the
same answer which is
This is the answer that we have seen earlier. In solving the Euler's equations for the top, we
made the assumption of . Further we assumed that the top only precesses about
the vertical. However, there is no reason why it cannot posses a horizontal angular velocity
ΩH also. Assuming the existence of Ω and ΩH and then solving the Euler's equations will
give a more complete solution for the motion of a spinning top. It in fact gives the nutating
motion also. You may want to try getting this general solution.
With this lecture I end of the topic of rigid-body rotation.
Lecture 24 : Harmonic oscillator I: Introduction
Lecture 24
Harmonic oscillator I: Introduction
Having analyzed the motion of particles in different situations, let us now focus on a very special
kind of motion: that of oscillations. This is a very general kind of motion seen around you: A partial
moving around the bottom of a cup, a pendulum swinging, a clamped rod vibrating about its
equilibrium position or a string vibrating. A good first approximation to these motions is the simple
harmonic oscillation. Let us see what does that mean? At a stable equilibrium point, the force on a
body is zero; not only that, as a particle moves away from equilibrium, its potential energy increases
and it is pulled back towards the equilibrium point. Thus around a stable equilibrium point x0 (for
simplicity, let me take one-dimensional motion) the potential energy can be written as
Since at an equilibrium point, the force F(x0 ) on the particle vanishes,
Further, because Φ(x) has a minimum at x0 , this gives
Writing I get
and the corresponding equation of motion for a mass m as
As I will show a little later, the solution of this equation is of the form
and is known as the simple harmonic motion. It is the simplest possible motion about a stable
equilibrium point. Of course if k = 0 , the force will have higher order dependence on y and the
motion becomes more complicated. Further, even if , if we include higher order terms, the
resulting motion will become more complex. It is for this reason that we call the motion above simple
harmonic motion. We will see that this itself is quite a rich system. A system that performs simple
harmonic motion is called a simple harmonic oscillator. A prototype if this system is the spring-mass
system with k being the spring constant and m the mass of the block on the spring (figure 1).
In these lectures, I will talk about the motion of this system and how it is represented by a phasor
diagram. I will then introduce damping into the system. The simplest damping is a constant
opposing force like friction and next level is a damping proportional to the velocity. Then I will apply
a force on the system and see the motion of force damped and undamped oscillator. Along the way,
I will solve many examples to show wide applicability of simple harmonic motion.
To start with let us take our prototype system of mass and spring with unstretched length of the
spring so that equilibrium distance of the mass is . Now when the mass is displaced about
by x in the positive direction, the force is in negative direction so that
or
This is the general equation for simple harmonic oscillator. Recall that in such cases we assume a
solution of the form
and substitute it in the equation to get
Since this equation is true for all times, we should have
Thus there are two solution and . A general solution is then given in terms of a linear
combination of the two solutions so let us write
Since is real it is clear that . Thus
If we take A = AR + iAI , where both AR and AI are real then the solution above takes the form
which alternatively can be written as
Another equivalent way of writing the solution is
or
where
A is the maximum distance that the mass travels during a simple harmonic oscillation. It is known as
the amplitude of oscillation. The quantity is known as the phase with Φ being the initial
phase. All the boxed equations above are equivalent ways of writing the solution for a harmonic
oscillator. The general graph depicting the solution is given in figure 2.
Thus A is the maximum distance traveled by the block and gives its initial displacement.
The constants C and D or A and are determined by the initial conditions, i.e. initial displacement
and velocity of the mass. In general any two conditions are enough to determine the constants.
For a displacement
the velocity of the mass is given by
Thus the maximum possible magnitude of the velocity is ω0 A . The general displacement and the
corresponding velocity of the mass with respect to time are displayed in figure 3.
It is clear from the figure that for a given displacement, the velocity is such that when displacement
is at its maximum or minimum, the velocity is zero and when the displacement is zero, the velocity
has the largest magnitude. This is physically clear. When the spring is compressed or stretched to
its maximum, the particle is at rest and when the particle passes through the equilibrium point, its
speed is at its maximum. Let me now solve a few examples.
Example 1: In a spring-mass system k = 16 N/m and m = 1 kg . If the mass is displaced by

.05 m and released from rest, find its subsequent motion.
Using the initial conditions I get
x(0)= D = 0 .05m
So the solution is with the maximum speed of 0.2m/s . The solution x(t) is
plotted in figure 4. Also plotted there is the velocity v(t) of the mass as it performs its motion.
Notice that from the x(t) curve, the velocity can be easily plotted by taking its slope.
Let me now show you how the solution changes when the initial conditions are different.
Suppose instead of pulling the mass and releasing it, I give it an initial velocity of .1m/s
toward the right from the equilibrium. In that case
So . Obviously the maximum speed in this case is 0.1m/s, that given in

the beginning. The solution looks like shown in figure 5.
Third possibility of initial conditions is when I take the mass to a displacement of .05m and
push it towards the equilibrium point with a speed of .1m/sec. Then
Thus the solution is . If we wish to express this as

then
and
This gives and . The maximum speed in this case is

vmax = 4 x 0.056 = 0.224m/s . So the graph of the motion looks like that shown in figure 6.
From the graph it is very clear that initially the speed of the particle increases in the negative
direction and then the particle starts slowing down, stopping at the full compression of the
spring, as is clear from the plot of its displacement.
If in the case studied just now, the mass was thrown out instead of being pushed in, it would
have a positive velocity to start with but the speed would be decreasing at that moment.
Then the mass will travel out to its maximum displacement and would then turn back. The
general plot of displacement and velocity versus time would then look as in figure 7. I will
leave it for you to work out the numbers for amplitude and initial phase.
Example 2: In the second example I show that about any stable equilibrium point, the
motion to a good degree is simple harmonic. let us take two changes of 10 µC each at a
distance of half a meter so that is a positive charge of 5 µC is kept at the centre, its
experiences no force (see figure 8). The 5 µC charge is confined to move along the line
joining the two changes. If displaced by a small distance from its equilibrium position, what
kind of motion does it perform?
When the 5 µC is displaced to the right by x, the force on it is
In obtaining the force above, we have used the binomial theorem to expand .
Since the force is proportional to the displacement and in direction opposite to it, the charge
will perform simple harmonic motion.
Let me now look at some other examples, going beyond the spring-mass system.
Example 3: A disc of mass M and radius R is hanging on a will about a point on its
periphery (see figure 9). If it is displaced from its initial position by small angle and
released, find its subsequent motion.
This is a case where a rigid body is moving under distributed forces so we use angular
momentum to describe its motion. The equation of its motion therefore is
By transformation theorem,
So the equation of motion becomes
This means that in general the motion of the disc would be simple harmonic and will be
given as
The initial conditions in this case give C = 0 and D = θ0 . Therefore the solution in the
present case is .
Example 4: As the final example here, let me take a particle moving in a potential
.The potential has a minimum at x0 given by
You can yourself check that the second derivative at this point is positive and its value is 8B.
For very small displacements x about this point we have the change in the potential energy
given as
which by binomial theorem or the Taylor series expansion leads to
This gives an equivalent spring constant of k=8B and frequency of oscillation .
Having solved these examples I now wish to discuss a very important topic of phase and
phase difference in a simple-harmonic motion. I will spend some time discussion phasor
diagrams give a feel for the phase.
Phase and Phase difference in simple harmonic motion : In general the solution of a
simple harmonic equation is
As mentioned earlier A is known as the amplitude and as the phase. is a

constant depending on the initial conditions and we call it the phase constant. Let us now
see how does the motion look for different values of the phase constant . The
displacement versus time plots for different signs of the phase constant are shown in figure
10.
For Φ > 0 the motion at t = 0 begin at a value or phase angle that it would have slightly later
in the case. On the other hand, for Φ < 0 the motion is such that a particular
displacement for the case is reached at a later time. The motion lags behind the
motion. I leave it for you to figure out yourself how the corresponding velocities are
related.
Let us now at the special case of . In this case I get
and for
So you see that a phase difference of 180o, whether position or negative, means the same
thing. I would like you to plot the displacement versus time graph for these particular cases.
For the phases in between you should see for yourself how the displacements at t = 0 are
different from case.
A good way of visualizing the simple harmonic motion is the phasor or vector diagram. I
discuss that next.
Phasor or vector diagram: A nice geometric way of looking at various quantities in a

simple harmonic motion is the vector or a phasor diagram. You may have seen it in your
12th grade while studying AC circuits. Let me show you how we represent
in a geometric way. You see that displacement in this case is the x component of a vector
making an angle ωt from the x-axis. Thus the displacement is represented as shown in
figure 11. The motion described by is thus given by the projection of a
vector of length A, rotating counterclockwise at a rate ω, on the x-axis.
Let us now see how the velocity and the acceleration will be represented in this
scheme? The velocity and acceleration are given as
The displacement, velocity and acceleration are shown in the phasor diagram in figure 12. A
general feature that we observe from this phase diagram is that the velocity vector is always
ahead (measuring counterclockwise) of the displacement vector and the acceleration
vector is at π (ahead or behind?) the displacement.
So far we have discussed the simple case of . What about the general
case of . This is also equally simple. All we have to do is keep the
initial position of the vector at t = 0 at an angle Φ from the x-axis and start rotating it from
there. The velocity vector and the acceleration vector are then going to be given at and π
from it, as discussed above. This is shown in figure 13.
Recall that in the middle of this lecture I had solved a spring-mass problem with different
initial conditions. I would like you to make the phasor diagram to represent the motion of the
mass in many different situations like those considered above. Do not solve for x(t) to start
with, just make the phasor diagram directly to see if you have got a feel for motion under
different conditions.
Finally in this lecture I look at the energy of a system performing simple harmonic motion.
The potential energy U(x) and the kinetic energies T are
The total energy E is of course a sum of the two. With this gives
Since , we get
Thus the energy depends on the square of the amplitude. This makes sense because if I
stretch a spring by A, the energy stored in it is . On releasing the mass it performs
oscillations of amplitude A. Thus you see that amplitude A immediately implies a total
energy given above.
I have now set up all the basic concepts of simple harmonic motion. In the coming lectures I
will introduce damping in the system and see how it evolves.
Lecture 25 : Harmonic oscillator II: damped oscillator
Lecture 25
Harmonic oscillator II: damped oscillator
In the previous lecture, I covered some basic aspects of simple harmonic oscillations. We
considered the equation
and saw how its motion is described. A general solution of this equation is
I now make the system little more realistic and introduce damping into the system. Let us first look
at what happens if we introduce friction into the system. I consider again our prototype spring-mass
system and let there be a constant frictional force f on the mass. This force will always oppose the
motion so the system will eventually come to a stop. Let us see when does it do that?
The simplest way of seeing when he system will stop is the through the consideration of energy. But
I would like to solve the problem by employing the equation of motion. I will later solve it from energy
considerations also. Here is one case where I will have to analyze motion step by step because as
the velocity direction changes, so does the force direction. So let us pull the spring out to a distance
A and let it move towards the equilibrium point (see figure 1).
When the block is moving towards the left, equation governing its motion will be
In the above, the frictional force f sign is positive because the mass is moving in the negative x
direction and therefore the frictional force is in positive x direction. This equation can be recast into
the form
We have encountered such kind of equation earlier. It has a homogeneous part and
an inhomogeneous term on the right-hand side. So the general solution is
where
Thus
With the initial conditions , the solution is
This is the solution when the block is moving to the left. Since
so the block will come to a stop when . At that time
So by the time the block comes to a stop it has lost distance from its amplitude. And this loss is
irrespective of the distance from where the block starts its motion from. This should then also
happen when the block starts coming back. Let us find that out. On its way back (see figure 2), the
block follows the equation
Notice that the sign of the friction force is now negative. This is because now the block is traveling to
the right and therefore the friction force acts towards the left (see figure 2).
Now we have to solve this equation with the initial condition that
I leave it as an exercise for you to get the solution. It is
The corresponding velocity is proportional to ω0t, and therefore goes to zero again after a time
interval of . At that time . Thus every half time the block goes from one extreme
to the other, it loses a distance of , and in each cycle it loses a distance of . Question
is how many cycles does the block complete before it comes to a stop. The block stops when its
final displacement is . If it completes n cycles before that, we have
The same result can also be obtained, as I said earlier, by energy methods. If stretched by A the
total energy of the system is . Let us say that before stopping, the block it compresses the
spring by A1. Then its energy will be . The loss in the energy is caused by friction. Thus
The total distance moved by the block is (A+A1) and so the energy lost against friction is f(A+A1) .
Thus the equation transforms to
and gives
which is the same loss in amplitude over half a cycle as obtained earlier. The rest of the analysis is
the same as done earlier.
Having dealt with the constant friction case, we now consider the most common example of damped
oscillations. This is the oscillator where damping force is proportional to the velocity i.e.,
In this case, the equation of motion is
Writing we get
This is the equation for a damped oscillator. The equation is homogeneous in x so we assume a
solution and substitute it in the equation to get.
which gives
So the general solutions are
Except in the case when (we will deal with it later) the behavior of the solution depends
on the relation magnitude of γ and ω0. Let us first consider the case when . In that case
The general solution then is
This is known as a heavily damped oscillator. The coefficients C and D depend on the initial
conditions. For example if I stretch the spring to a distance A and release the block, let us see what
happen in this case. By initial conditions
This leads to
A t → ∞ this solution behaves like . The general solution is displayed in
figure 3.
It is clear from the figure that there are no oscillations in this case the block slowly comes to rest at x
= 0 , i.e. the equilibrium point. I now explore another situation. Suppose we give an implies (speed v
) at t = 0 then the boundary conditions are
Thus the solution would be
In this case the distance versus time graph looks as shown in figure 4.
The figure clearly shows that the block goes out to a maximum distance and then comes back and
stops at the equilibrium point. So in both the cases studied above the mass does not cross the
equilibrium point. Next I ask: what if we stretch the mass out to a distance A and give it an initial
impulse from that point (in negative direction). Then the initial conditions will b
Solution in this case comes out to be
The solution is plotted schematically in figure 5.
It is clear that in this case the particle moves towards the equilibrium point, crosses it, goes a
distance and comes back. However on its way back it slowly comes to rest at the equilibrium point
and does not cross it. So in heavy damping cases, the block passes the equilibrium point at most
once and its distance decays exponentially as .
Lecture 25 : Harmonic oscillator II: damped oscillator
To summarize, I have covered three cases for the heavy damping situation and got
(i) Spring stretched and block released
(ii) The block given an initial positive velocity at equilibrium
(iii) Spring stretched out and the block given a velocity in the negative direction
I would now like to tell you about the case when . This is known as the critically damped
case. Obviously this situation arises when . I can easily find solutions for such case if I
take the limit in the cases of heavy damping just studied. Please note that I cannot
straightaway take in the expressions above because I am dividing by . Taking
the limit gives for the three cases studied above
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
As remarked above, the cases we have just discussed correspond to critical damping. In this
situation and . Mathematically, in this case there is only one solution (
) that we get from the equation for λ because of its double root. The other solution is found to
be . That is precisely what we have found by taking appropriate limit.
Critically damped system and used when we want a system to return to its equilibrium position after
receiving an impulse, although one is tempted to say that use a heavily damped system for this
purpose. I would like you to understand this by carrying out the following exercise.
Exercise : The block on a damped spring-mass system is given an initial velocity v from equilibrium.
Given a damping coefficient γ, plot the distance versus time graph for the critically and heavily
damped cases. For ease of calculation take the heavy damping to be very large so that
and make appropriate approximations.
Having discussed the heavily and critically damped systems, we move on to lightly damped system.
In such systems so that
So the general solution is
Or equivalently
In case when , it is called very light damping and in such case .
Let us now take a particular can when the block is stretched to distance A and is released from rest.
I leave the details of the solution to be worked out by you. Here I give the final answer which is
This solution is plotted schematically in figure 6. Notice how the maximum distance reached by the
block decreases with time.
When we consider light damping, generally we are dealing with cases where we want the decay to
be small. Thus within the time that the motion decays, there are many-many oscillations. Thus we
can then write the displacement as
because implies that . The equation above is interpreted as the
oscillation taking place with frequency w 0 with time-dependent amplitude . Mathematically
what this means is that so there are two time scales in the problem. Let me now talk
about the energy of the system. Since the amplitude is decreasing with time, the system is obviously
losing energy. I want to calculate the rate of energy loss in the system. First, there and many
oscillations over the time interval of , which is also a very large time span. Further, the decay of
the amplitude is very small over a few periods. This allows us to talk in terms of the average energy
of the system. What it means is the energy averaged over a few cycles around a given instant. I
now calculate it.
Now use to calculate this energy. It gives
Now taking an average over a few cycles under the approximation that the exponentially decaying
term be treated as roughly a constant over these cycles and neglecting the term proportional to γ2 , I
get
where angular brackets denote the average energy. So the average energy decays exponentially for
a lightly damped oscillator.
I now define the quality factor or Q for an oscillator. As mentioned earlier, we are interested in
systems where ; it is in such cases only that talking about Q makes sense. Q is defined as
High Q value for an oscillator means that there is very low leakage compared to the store energy.
Finally I summarize the lecture by telling you that we have covered the cases of heavy, critical and
light damping in this lecture. You must have noticed that I have made a lot of graphs in this and the
previous lecture. Please do that when you solve a problem. It will give you a feel for the system.
Lecture 26 : Harmonic oscillator III: Forced oscillations
Lecture 26
Harmonic oscillator III: Forced oscillations
In the previous two lectures, you have learnt about free harmonic oscillator and damped harmonic
oscillator. In this lecture we study what happens when a harmonic oscillator is subjected to a force.
The simplest case is when an oscillator is subjected to a constant force F . In that case nothing much
takes place except that the equilibrium point gets shifted by (F/k). You see an example of it when a
mass is attached to a vertical spring. Mathematically we write
This can be written as
for an undamped oscillator and
for a damped oscillator. Define a new variable so that the equation reads (I write only the
undamped oscillator equation)
This is the equation you are well familiar with. From its solution, that for x is written as
So the mass oscillates about . I now take up an oscillator subjected to a time-dependent

force.
A general time-dependent force F(t) can always be decomposed into its Fourier components like
so generally we study an oscillator subjected to a force of the form.
, where and F is the amplitude of the force. Let me start by first studying
the motion of an undamped oscillator under such a force.
The equation of motion for an undamped oscillator under a time-periodic force is
or equivalently
The general solution is a combination of homogeneous part of the equation and a particular solution
xp. Thus
Here you can check that
Let me start the oscillator from rest at equilibrium. It starts moving because of the applied force. The
initial conditions then are . Under these conditions the solution comes out to
be
So the general solution is a combination of motion of two frequencies. The resulting motion can be
represented on a phasor diagram by adding the two motions vectorially. This shown at t = 0 and two
other different times in figure 1.
As is clear from the figure, at t = 0, the net displacement is zero. As the time progresses, the
displacement changes with the length of the rotating vector also changing with time. As an illustrative
example, I take the frequency , and two different frequencies,
for the force. The resulting solutions are shown in figure 2.
So you see from the figure above that the maximum displacement of oscillations keeps changing. This
is what I had inferred from the phasor diagram also. The motion is still periodic and reminds us of the
phenomena of beats.
Interesting is the case when . However, I cannot put it directly in the formula become we are
dividing by . So we have to take the limit . Let me substitute in the formula

or and take . This leads to
Thus the displacement keeps on increasing with time oscillating with the frequency of the oscillator.
This is the phenomena of resonance. The corresponding plot of displacement is shown in figure 3.
Forced oscillations of an undamped at resonance
Figure 3
Having discussed forced oscillations for undamped oscillator, we now move on to study a damped
oscillator moving under the influence of a periodic force. The equation of motion then is
As earlier, the general solution of this equation is going to the sum of the homogenous and
inhomogeneous part. So
As the time progresses will make the homogeneous solution die down so finally the only
solution remaining will be
This is known as the steady state solution. Obviously it does not depend on the initial conditions. Let
us now find this solution.
For the equation of motion
I assume a steady state solution of the form But when substituted in the equation, this will
give rise to a term containing because of in the equation. So a general solution should be
of the form.
When substituted in the equation, this leads to
These equations give
So the general solution is
where
Thus after reaching steady state, the displacement lags behind the applied force by an angle with
and oscillates with an amplitude
The oscillation frequency of steady-state solutions is obviously equal to the frequency of the applied
force. A typical displacement and its shift with respect to the applied force are shown in figure 4.
As far as getting the steady state solution for a forced damped oscillator is concerned, we are done.
What we need to do now is to analyze the solution in different situations.
First of all we notice that irrespective of whether the system is lightly damped or heavily damped, it will
always oscillate under an applied time-periodic force. Let us first consider the case of light damping
and see how the amplitude varies with the applied frequency. The amplitude as a function of ω is
given as
This amplitude goes to as . This is nothing but the stretch of the spring under a
constant force. For very large frequencies . In between the amplitude has a maximum at
as is easily seen. So in this case, the amplitude as a function of frequency looks as shown in
figure 5 for two different values of γ .
It is clear from the figure that the amplitude is maximum around which reminds us of the
phenomenon of resonance for undamped oscillator. For large γ values the peak shifts to the left (lower
frequency).
For heavy damping ( γ > ) we do not see any amplitude maximum near but the system
has large amplitude for low frequencies. A schematic plot of amplitude as a function of frequency
looks like figure 6. It is evident that only for low frequencies the system oscillates with reasonable
amplitude.
What about the phase of the system with respect to the applied force? I leave this as an exercise for
you to plot the phase of displacement as a function of frequency.
Lecture 26 : Harmonic oscillator III: Forced oscillations
Next I discuss how much power is absorbed by the system to maintain its oscillations.
Power absorption in a forced damped oscillator : Since a damped system has a retardation
force opposing its motion, it dissipates energy. For it to maintain a steady-state the applied force
constantly supplies energy to it. It is this power that I now calculate. Power given to the system is
since I am considering a one dimensional system. Otherwise I would have taken the dot
product between the force and the velocity. The calculation proceeds as follows
Since the average of over a cycle is ½ and that of zero, the average
the last expression with respect to time over one cycle gives
This is the average power being supplied to the system to maintain its steady-state. The same can
also be obtained by realizing that in steady-state the power given to the system is the same as
power dissipated by it. Power dissipated is the drag force times the
velocity. This is therefore calculated as follows:
Taking its time average over a cycle then gives the average dissipated power
which is the same result as obtained above. The negative sign shows that this is the energy lost,
and produced heat due to the friction in the system. Since the amplitude of the motion is largest
when the force has a frequency close to the natural frequency of a system, it is expected that the
power loss will also be maximum near that frequency. I have plotted the power dissipated in a
forced damped harmonic oscillator in figure 7.
The curve peaks at ω0 so the power absorption is indeed maximum at the resonance frequency.
Finally I relate the Q factor of a damped oscillator with the power versus frequency curve given
above. To do this let us see at what frequency does the power absorption is ½ of its peak value. The
calculation, in which we make the frequency-dependent factor in the expression for power
dimensionless and equate it to ½, is given below
Solving this equation for the frequency ω under the approximation of light-damping gives
The frequency width from is known as full width at half maximum (FWHM)
and its value is γ. Thus the quality factor can also be interpreted as
This pretty much sums up what I want to tell you about forced oscillations. I want to point out that we
have focused here strictly on the steady-state solutions for the damped oscillator. However, before
steady-state is reached, the system goes through transient motion, which is also important to
understand in designing of systems.
This lecture brings us to the close of our discussion on harmonic oscillators.

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What are the three laws of motion?

What are the three laws of motion?

What is resonance in a forced damped harmonic oscillator?

What is resonance in a forced damped harmonic oscillator?

2/20/2020 Objectives_template

In this course on Engineering Mechanics, we shall be learning about mechanical interaction

, it is now easy to see what is the vector ? It is a vector of magnitude

we add the two vectors to get a displacement of 500m at an angle

from east to north (Figure 7).

angle of from east to south.

Although graphical way is nice to visualize vectors in two dimensions, it becomes

vectors , and in the directions x, y and z, respectively, in any order (recall

Further, using the concept of unit vectors, we can write , where Ax is a

It is clear from figure 9 that the magnitude of the vector is

. Now when we add two vector, say

and , all we have to do is to add their x-components, y-

Similarly multiplying a vector by a number is same as increasing all its components by

And under a rotation about the x-axis

Let us summarize the results obtained above:

Scalar or dot product: Now it is easy to show that is a

them. Notice that although can be negative or positive

and the y component is

where is a unit vector in the direction perpendicular to the plane formed by

Geometric interpretation of cross product : The magnitude of the cross-product

as depending on one parameter, say time t , and evaluate the derivative .

This is similar to what we do for a regular function. We evaluate the vector

The derivative is easily understood if we think in terms of its derivatives. If we write a

then the derivative of the vector is given as

1. Show that and that is the

1. Show that if the magnitude of a vector quantity is a fixed, its derivative

going to spend time on these topics individually.

We start with a few simple examples:

Let us look at an example of this in 2 dimensions.

Torque can be calculated about O by taking to be either . As argued

On the other hand, with we get

The torques about O and O' and their difference is:

But from the figure above

Next we focus on the moment of a force about an axis.

Therefore the torque about the z-axis is

The equation of line along which the force acts is

. The perpendicular line is

Solving for the intersection point we get

Then torque about z-axis therefore is therefore clockwise, which

Let us summarize this lecture by summarizing what we have learnt:

(1) For equilibrium of a body

are necessary and sufficient conditions.

(2) The torque about a point due to forces applied on a body, is an

origin dependent quantity but for special case of it is origin independent.

opposite and are separated by distance d . The couple moment is .

Forces and couples generated by various elements: As we solve engineering problems, we

To find N and f we apply the force equation

That can be written in the component form a

Let us look at these equations.

Solving these equations gives

Next we look at a built in or fixed support as shown in the figure.

To find, , let us take moment about point A or B

Taking torque about point O and equating it to zero, we get

point Then the torque due to all these forces will be

In general of course we have all the six condition.