Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

STATICS
TUTORIAL 3
UNIT 2: Resultants and Centre of Gravity Chapter 5: Centre of Gravity and Centroid
Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy EBXS3103 Statics Jan 2005
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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

SEQUENCE OF CHAPTER 5
Introduction Objectives 5.1 Centre of Gravity and Centre of Mass for a System of Particles
5.1.1 Centre of Gravity 5.1.2 Centre of Gravity for a System with n Particles 5.1.3 Centre of Mass

5.2 Centre of Mass, Centre of Gravity and Centroid for Composite Body
5.2.1 Procedure for Analysis

Summary
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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

Introduction
In this chapter, you will be exposed to one of the basic aspect in engineering, i.e. center of gravity and centroid. Take a closer look at things around you. A racing car, for instance, is designed to give maximum performance during extreme conditions. The aerodynamics of the car must be perfect before the car hit the racing track. All the components inside the car are arranged so that they will collectively give the lowest center of gravity of the car

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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

Objectives
At the end of this chapter, you should be able to :
1. discuss the concept of the center of gravity, center of mass and centroid. 2. show how to determine the location of the center of gravity and centroid for a system of arbitrary shape.

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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

5.1 Centre of Gravity and Centre of Mass for a System of Particles

5.1.1 Centre of Gravity
 The center of gravity, G for a body is a point which locates the gravity or weight of the body.  The gravity or weight of the body is normally represented by W. Theoretically, a body can be thought to consist of particles and the gravity will act on each particle in the body.  Therefore, this gravity force can be represented by a small force (W. This small force is uniformly distributed throughout the body.

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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

5.1 Centre of Gravity and Centre of Mass for a System of Particles

5.1.2 Centre of Gravity for a System of n Particles
 The weights of the particles comprise a system of parallel forces which can be replaced by a single equivalent resultant weight having the defined point G of application.  To find the x , y , z coordinates of G, we must use the moment principle. For a body to be in static equilibrium, the resultant weight must be equal to the total weights of all n particles, i.e.,

WR ! W
Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM)

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Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

5.1 Centre of Gravity and Centre of Mass for a System of Particles

5.1.2 Centre of Gravity for a System of n Particles
 The sum of the moment of the weights of all the particles about the x,y and z is equal to the moment of the resultant weight about these axes. Thus, to calculate the x coordinate of G, we can take the sum of moments about the y axis. This will give

x WR ! ~1W1  ~2W2  -  ~nWn x x x

(5.1)

 Similarly, by taking the summation of moments about the x axis, we will get the y coordinate, i.e.
(5.2) yWR ! ~1W1  ~2W2  -  ~nWn y y y  Although the weights of the system of particles shown in Figure 5.1 (a) do not produce a moment about the z axis, we can still obtain the z coordinate by imagining the coordinate system. We can imagine that the particles are fixed in the system and being rotated 90o about the x (or y) axis, as shown in Figure 5.1 (b). By taking the summation of the moments about the x axis, we will get
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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

5.1 Centre of Gravity and Centre of Mass for a System of Particles

5.1.2 Centre of Gravity for a System of n Particles
 The sum of the moment of the weights of all the particles about the x,y and z is equal to the moment of the resultant weight about these axes. Thus, to calculate the x coordinate of G, we can take the sum of moments about the y axis. This will give

z WR ! ~1W1  ~2W2  -  ~nWn z z z

(5.3)

 Equations (1) to (3) can be presented in a generalized form and symbolically written in
x ~m x! m y ~m y! m z ~m z! m
(5.4) Figure 5.1 (b)
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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

5.1 Centre of Gravity and Centre of Mass for a System of Particles

5.1.3 Centre of Mass
 Center of mass is necessary to determine when we are dealing with the problems related to dynamics, i.e. the motion of matter under the influence of force.  Provided that the acceleration of a body due to gravity g for every particle is constant, thus we will have W = mg. Substituting into equation 5.4 and by canceling g from the denominator and numerator, we will have
x ~m x! m y ~m y! m z ~m z! m

 By comparison then, the center of gravity coincides with the center of mass. From general principles of Statics, we already know that particles will have weight only under the influence of gravitational force. The center of mass, on the other hand is independent of gravity.
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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

5.2 Centre of Mass, Centre of Gravity and Centroid for Composite Body
 Composite body is a body that is made from several common shape segments. Its center of gravity, G can be determined by expressing the moment about O of its total weight is equal to the sum of the moments about O of the weights of various component parts.  This method is much easier than the integration method for a rigid body since the integration is replaced with the algebraic sum of various component parts.  The following equations can be used to determine the center of gravity, center of mass and centroid of composite body.
x ~m x! m y ~m y! m z ~m z! m
(5.12)

where

composite body. 7m is the sum of the mass of the composite parts of the body.
Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM)

x , y , z are the coordinates of the center of mass of the composite body. x , y , z are the coordinates of the center of mass of each segment of the
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Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

5.2 Centre of Mass, Centre of Gravity and Centroid for Composite Body
 Equation 5.12 can also be used for composite body that consists of lines, areas and volume. Equations 5.13 to 5.15 can be utilize to determine the center of gravity, center of mass and centroid for lines, areas and volumes.
For line:

x ~L x! L
For line:

y ~L y! L y ~A y! A

z ~L z! L z ~A z! A

(5.13)

x ~A x! A
For line:

(5.14)

x ~V x! V

y ~V y! V

z ~V z! V

(5.15)
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Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM)

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

5.2 Centre of Mass, Centre of Gravity and Centroid for Composite Body
5.2.1 Procedure for Analysis
1. Identify the composite body to be analysed. 2. Clearly identify the parts that make up the composite body. These parts are objects of basic shapes. They can be a triangle, rectangle, circular arc, semicircular arc, hemisphere, cylinder and etc. 3. Identify the center of gravity or center of mass or centroid of each parts, which is also called segments. 4. Locate this center of gravity or center of mass or centroid of this part with respect to the coordinate axes given in the question. 5. Tabulate and write these coordinates of the center of gravity, center of mass or centroid in the table and determine the center of gravity or center of mass or centroid using the appropriate equations.
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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

Example 5.7
Calculate the coordinates of the centroid ( x, y ) of the shaded area shown in Figure Example 5.17 (a).

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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

Example 5.7  Solution

Shaded area shown in Figure Example 5.7 (a) can be divided into three basic segments; rectangle, triangle and semicircle as shown in Figure Example 5.17 (b).

Thus,
x A~ ! 1720812 ! 86.7mm x! A 19845
Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM)

y A~ ! 1411148 ! 71.1mm y! A 19845

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Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

Summary
 Chapter 5 concentrates on the center of gravity, center of

mass and centroid.

 The concept was introduced for a composite bodies. A

simpler approach is graphically discussed, where the bodies were segmented into several basic shapes and tabulated in the form of a table.
 Using the appendix of center of gravity, center of mass and

centroid for basic objects, the center of gravity, center of mass and centroid were determined from an algebraic summation.

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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia

Faculty of Engineering and Technical Studies

Thank You

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Subject Matter Expert/Author: Ir Dr Kanesan Muthusamy (OUM) Copyright ODL Jan 2005 Open University Malaysia