Paper 3, Section I, E

Classical Dynamics
Part II, 2009

(a) Show that the principal moments of inertia of a uniform circular cylinder of radius aa, length hh and mass MM about its centre of mass are I1=I2=M(a2/4+h2/12)I_{1}=I_{2}=M\left(a^{2} / 4+h^{2} / 12\right) and I3=Ma2/2I_{3}=M a^{2} / 2, with the x3x_{3} axis being directed along the length of the cylinder.

(b) Euler's equations governing the angular velocity (ω1,ω2,ω3)\left(\omega_{1}, \omega_{2}, \omega_{3}\right) of an arbitrary rigid body as viewed in the body frame are

I1dω1dt=(I2I3)ω2ω3I2dω2dt=(I3I1)ω3ω1\begin{aligned} &I_{1} \frac{d \omega_{1}}{d t}=\left(I_{2}-I_{3}\right) \omega_{2} \omega_{3} \\ &I_{2} \frac{d \omega_{2}}{d t}=\left(I_{3}-I_{1}\right) \omega_{3} \omega_{1} \end{aligned}

and

I3dω3dt=(I1I2)ω1ω2I_{3} \frac{d \omega_{3}}{d t}=\left(I_{1}-I_{2}\right) \omega_{1} \omega_{2}

Show that, for the cylinder of part (a),ω3(\mathrm{a}), \omega_{3} is constant. Show further that, when ω30\omega_{3} \neq 0, the angular momentum vector precesses about the x3x_{3} axis with angular velocity Ω\Omega given by

Ω=(3a2h23a2+h2)ω3\Omega=\left(\frac{3 a^{2}-h^{2}}{3 a^{2}+h^{2}}\right) \omega_{3}