Rigid Body Analysis in a Plane: The Most Common Machine Design Analysis

General Case: Dynamic Translation and Rotation Special Case 1: Quasi-Static Translation and Rotation
Key Assumption: Accelerations are low enough to be neglected, and thus r && are negligible. a and
F2 F1 M

F2 F1 M

y Center of Mass (CM) x

y x

A
Arbitrary Point on Rigid Body

F3

F3

Translation

Governing Equations Rotation The moments are calculated at the CM

Translation Vector Notation

Governing Equations Rotation The moments can be calculated about any point.

Translation is evaluated at the Center of Mass (CM) Vector Notation

r F 0

r r F = ma CM

&& MCM = ICM

The M includes moments from all forces and also applied pure moments.

Scalar Notation

M A 0
The point A is any point on the rigid body. Since dynamic forces are negligible, the Center of Mass does not enter the governing equations. The proof of this is left as an exercise for the reader.

Scalar Notation in x and y

Fx 0 Fy 0

Fx = ma CM,x Fy = ma CM,y

Comments: This is the general case, thus these equations are always valid for rigid body analysis in a plane. In many cases, assumptions can be made that simplify the above equations. But it never hurts to use these equations to double check special case analysis.

Comments: This analysis is similar to static analysis, but can be applied to moving parts. Quasi-static motion applies to any case where accelerations are low. This can be impending motion where motion is slowly beginning to occur or constant velocity motion. However, it does not apply to motion with frequent starts and stops, since accelerations can be high. Inequalities can be used to evaluate whether impending motion will occur; for example, if Fx>0 horizontal motion will occur.

Special Case 2: Dynamic Rotation about a Pivot

Special Case 3: Quasi-Static Rotation about a Pivot

Key Assumption: Accelerations are low enough to be neglected, and thus r && are negligible. a and

Rotation

F2 P (pivot) M F1

Rotation

F2 P (pivot) M

F1

y x

y x

F3

F3

Governing Equations The moments and inertia are calculated about the pivot

Governing Equations The moments are calculated about the pivot

& M P = I P &
P = Moment of Inertia about pivot point P. Comments: The direction of positive rotation is shown as counterclockwise to be consistent with the right-hand rule. The moment of inertia of a machine element can be difficult to calculated, but often can be estimated by summing key masses on the object multiplied by the distance to the pivot squared.

M P 0

Comments: Impending motion can be calculated with an inequality, for example MP>0 indicates that counterclockwise motion will occur. Special case 3 is a subset of special case 1. The force balance equation are still valid, and can be used to calculate the reaction forces at the pivot.