Archive of posts with tag “rigid body”

• Nov 12, 2022

  Kinetic energy, momentum, and angular momentum of rigid bodies

  In this article, we will find that the inertia matrix naturally appears when we calculate the kinetic energy $T$ or the angular momentum $\mathbf M$ of a rigid body. Then, we introduce the concept of principal inertia $\mathbf J_{\mathrm{pri}}$. We also study how the inertia matrix changes under translations and rotations and how those transformations may lead to conclusions that can help us simplify the calculation of inertia matrices.

  • Categories: physics
  • Tags: rigid body, linear algebra, classical mechanics, from zhihu