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HW10 - Prob1 - Cylinder Inertia Ellipsoid

1) The document discusses finding the principal moments of inertia of a right circular cylinder to determine the ratio of its radius to height that would make its inertia ellipsoid spherical. 2) It derives expressions for the three principal moments in terms of the radius and height and sets them equal to solve for the ratio. 3) The ratio that makes the inertia ellipsoid a sphere is found to be the radius equal to 2/√3 times the height, for a cylinder centered at its base, and the radius equal to √4/3 times the height for a cylinder centered at its geometric center.

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340 views

HW10 - Prob1 - Cylinder Inertia Ellipsoid

1) The document discusses finding the principal moments of inertia of a right circular cylinder to determine the ratio of its radius to height that would make its inertia ellipsoid spherical. 2) It derives expressions for the three principal moments in terms of the radius and height and sets them equal to solve for the ratio. 3) The ratio that makes the inertia ellipsoid a sphere is found to be the radius equal to 2/√3 times the height, for a cylinder centered at its base, and the radius equal to √4/3 times the height for a cylinder centered at its geometric center.

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Problem: Right circular cylinder

Origin at center of cylinder


Let the height of the cylinder be 2 and its diameter be 2. Imagine that the
cylinder is oriented so that its symmetry axis lies along the  axis of a Cartesian
frame whose origin is at the center of the cylinder. In this orientation, there
are only three non-zero elements of the inertia tensor, the diagonal elements.
All of the off-diagonal elements are zero. In other words, these  axes are the
principal axes. We will verify this below. For the inertia ellipsoid of the right
cylinder to be that of a sphere, all of the principal moments must be equal. This
means that our task becomes one simply of finding general expressions for the
three principal moments in terms of  and  and then evaluating the ratio 
that makes them all equal.
Start with the general expression for the  component of the inertia tensor
(,  = , , ) Z
 = (r)(2   −   )3   (1)

Note that r is measured from the origin of the body frame coordinate system,
2 = 2 +  2 +  2 , and  = ,  = , etc. For this cylinder, the density  is
constant, and the mass  of the cylinder is
 = 22   (2)
where  is the radius of the cylinder. Given the geometry of the object, the
obvious choice is to use cylindrical coordinates to do the required integrations.
With  =  cos  and  =  sin ,  will vary from 0 to ,  will vary from 0 to
2, and  will vary from − to , where  is the half-height of the cylinder.
For the  component Eq.(1) reduces to
Z Z Z Z  Z  Z 2
3
 = −  = −    cos  sin  = 0  (3)
− 0 0

where the  integration is obviously zero. Now consider the  component. We


have
Z Z Z Z  Z  Z 2
 = −  = −  2  cos  = 0  (4)
− 0 0

which is also obviously zero. Finally, the  component is very similar in


structure to the , and it is clearly zero as well. This leaves only the three
diagonal elements to evaluate.
First, we have
Z Z Z Z  Z  Z 2
 =  ( 2 +  2 ) =     (2 sin2  +  2 )
− 0 0
Z 2
4 3 2
=  ( sin2  + ) (5)
0 2 3

1
and after performing the  integration and replacing  with Eq.(2), we obtain
∙ 2 ¸
 2
 =  +  (6)
4 3

Proceeding to the  component, we have


Z Z Z Z  Z  Z 2
 =  (2 +  2 ) =     (2 cos2  +  2 ) 
− 0 0
(7)
which by symmetry is the same as  . Thus, we have

 =   (8)

Finally, we consider the  component. We have


Z Z Z Z  Z  Z 2
2 2 3
 =  ( +  ) =      = 4  (9)
− 0 0

which reduces to
2
 =   (10)
2
with the use of Eq.(2).
Because of Eq.(8), to solve this problem all we have to do is satisfy

 =   (11)

With the use of Eqs.(6) and (10), we have

2 2 2
+ =  (12)
4 3 2
which easily reduces to
2 3
2
=  (13)
 4
It then follows that if the -to- ratio is
 2
=√  (14)
 3
the inertia ellipsoid of the right cylinder will be a sphere.
Origin at center of cylinder base
In this case we can find the new principal momnets using the Parallel Axis
Theorem with R =z. In this case, we have I =  2 (1 − zz), from which
we see that only the  and  principal moments will be changed by the addition
of  2 . Thus, we now have
∙ 2 ¸
 42
 =  =  +  (15)
4 3

2
with  unchanged from above. To make the inertia ellipsoid a sphere, we now
require that
2 42 2
+ =  (16)
4 3 2
which yields the ratio
 4
=√  (17)
 3

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