inertia tensor matrix for ensemble of particles.

Math and Physics Programming

Started by kindfluffysteve July 18, 2002 11:17 AM

2 comments, last by kindfluffysteve 21 years, 9 months ago

100

Author

July 18, 2002 11:17 AM

Could somebody tell me how to do this or show me a link? a rigid body has an inertia tensor matrix calculatable from the objects mass. my object is an ensemble of particles with mass. how do i calculate its inertia matrix?

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a2k

124

July 19, 2002 04:09 AM

oh man, still no replies? well the truth is, it''s because finding the inertia tensor for complex objects is difficult. i''m not sure what your "ensemble" most closely resembles, but you should be able to find formulae for primitives like spheres and boxes.

a2k

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grhodes_at_work

1,385

July 19, 2002 11:22 AM

Its actually quite simple to calculate the inertia tensor for a cloud of spherical particles with mass:

Let (Xo, Yo, Zo) be the point about which you want to calculate the inertias. Then, here''s the pseudocode

float Ixx = 0., Iyy = 0., Izz = 0., Ixy = 0., Ixz = 0.;
float Iyz = 0., mass = 0.
Particle *p = all the particles;

for (int i = 0; i < numparticles; i++)
{
mass += p.mass;
Ixx += p.mass*(p.y*p.y + p.z*p.z); Iyy += p.mass*(p.x*p.x + p.z*p.z); Izz += p.mass*(p.x*p.x + p.y*p.y); Ixy += p.mass*(p.x*p.y); Ixz += p.mass*(p.x*p.z); Iyz += p.mass*(p.y*p.z); } When you''re done, the inertia tensor will be: [ Ixx Ixy Ixz ] IT = | Iyx Iyy Iyz | [ Izx Izy Izz ] And you also have the total mass of the system. Graham Rhodes Senior Scientist Applied Research Associates, Inc.