Moment of Inertia, General Form

Since the moment of inertia of an ordinary object involves a continuous distribution of mass at a
continually varying distance from any rotation axis, the calculation of moments of inertia generally
involves calculus, the discipline of mathematics which can handle such continuous variables. Since
the moment of inertia of a point mass is defined by

then the moment of inertia contribution by an infinitesmal mass element dm has the same form.
This kind of mass element is called a differential elementof mass and its moment of inertia is given
by

Note that the differential element of moment of inertia dI must always be defined with respect to a
specific rotation axis. The sum over all these mass elements is called an integral over the mass.

Usually, the mass element dm will be expressed in terms of the geometry of the object, so that the
integration can be carried out over the object as a whole (for example, over a long uniform rod).
Having called this a general form, it is probably appropriate to point out that it is a general form
only for axes which may be called "principal axes", a term which includes all axes of symmetry of
objects. The concept of moment of inertia for general objects about arbitrary axes is a much more
complicated subject. The moment of inertia in such cases takes the form of a mathematical tensor
quantity which requires nine components to completely define it.

Recall that the equation used to calculate the moment of inertia of a collection of discrete masses about an arbitrary
axis of rotation is

where r is the perpendicular distance from the axis of rotation to each mass. We can use this same process for a
continuous, uniform thin rod having a mass per unit length (kg/m), . To begin, let's divide our rod into sections
having a constant mass, mi, each a distance ri from the pivot point.

Now let's make the m sections smaller and smaller, that is, let's take the limit as m 0.

In general, for a continuous, rigid body, the moment of inertia is calculated with the equation

Unfortunately we cannot calculate the given integral because we can't integrate x 2 with respect to "dm." We must
either express x in term of m or dm in terms of dx. We will use the rod's uniform mass per unit length (kg/m), , to
facilitate this substitution.

Now let's use this process to calculate the moment of inertia of a uniform, thin rod, rotated about its center of mass.

Below is a series of diagrams for a thin rod illustrating how the moment of inertia for the same object can change
with the placement of the axis of rotation. Notice, that the farther the pivot point is from the object's center of mass,
the greater its moment of inertia.
axis: far end of a thin rod

axis: one-fourth of the way from

the end of a thin rod

axis: center of a thin rod

These results would indicate that a thin rod would be most easily rotated about an axis through its center of mass
(I = 4/48 mL2 = 1/12 mL2) than about one of its far ends (I = 16/48 mL2 = 1/3 mL2). Consider a majorette. If she
twirls her baton about its center of gravity, for the same amount of torque she will achieve a greater rate of angular
acceleration than if she twirls the same baton about a pivot closer to one of its ends. Consequently, a drum major
maneuvering his mace or a member of the band's flag corps spinning their flag pole have to deal with larger
moments of inertia and therefore have more difficulty accelerating their respective apparatus.
Parallel Axis Theorem
Using the parallel axis theorem,

we can calculate the rods moment of inertia about any point as long as we know that position's distance (h) from
the object's center of mass. Let's practice by calculating the moment of inertia of a thin rod about its left end.

Notice that this is the same result that we would have obtained had we integrated our basic definition for the
moment of inertia.

In physics, when you calculate an objects moment of inertia, you need to consider not only the mass of the object but also how the
mass is distributed. For example, if two disks have the same mass but one has all the mass around the rim and the other is solid, then
the disks would have different moments of inertia.
Calculating moments of inertia is fairly simple if you only have to examine the orbital motion of small point-like objects, where all the
mass is concentrated at one particular point at a given radius r. For instance, for a golf ball youre whirling around on a string, the
moment of inertia depends on the radius of the circle the ball is spinning in:
I = mr2
Here, r is the radius of the circle, from the center of rotation to the point at which all the mass of the golf ball is concentrated.
Crunching the numbers can get a little sticky when you enter the nongolf ball world, however, because you may not be sure of which
radius to use. What if youre spinning a rod around? All the mass of the rod isnt concentrated at a single radius. When you have an
extended object, such as a rod, each bit of mass is at a different radius. You dont have an easy way to deal with this, so you have to
sum up the contribution of each particle of mass at each different radius like this:

You can use this concept of adding up the moments of inertia of all the elements to get the total in order to work out the moment of
inertia of any distribution of mass. Heres an example using two point masses, which is a bit more complex than a single point mass.
Say you have two golf balls, and you want to know what their combined moment of inertia is. If you have a golf ball at radius r1 and
another atr2, the total moment of inertia is

So how do you find the moment of inertia of, say, a disk rotating around an axis stuck through its center? You have to break the disk up
into tiny balls and add them all up. You complete this using the calculus process of integration.

Moment of Inertia: Thin Disk

The moment of inertia of a thin circular disk is the same as that for a solid cylinder of any length,
but it deserves special consideration because it is often used as an element for building up the
moment of inertia expression for other geometries, such as the sphere or the cylinder about an end

diameter. The moment of inertia about a diameter is the classic example of theperpendicular axis
theorem For a planar object: