1

(Second

Moment of Area, Area Moment of Inertia)

Vs Moment of Inertia
The Area Moment Of Inertia of a beams cross-sectional area measures the beams ability to resist bending. The larger the Moment of Inertia the less the beam will bend. The Area moment of inertia is a geometrical property of a beam and depends on a reference axis. The smallest Moment of Inertia about any axis passes through the centroid. In other words, the second moment of area, also known as the area moment of inertia or second moment of inertia is a property of a cross section that can be used to predict the resistance of beams to bending and deflection. The deflection of a beam under load depends not only on the load, but also on the geometry of the beam's cross-section. This is why beams with higher area moments of inertia, such as I-beams, are so often seen in building construction as opposed to other beams with the same area. It is analogous to the polar moment of inertia, which characterizes an object's ability to resist torsion.

Important:
The second moment of area is not the same thing as the moment of inertia, which is used to calculate angular acceleration, although the calculations are similar. Many engineers refer to the second moment of area as the moment of inertia and use the same symbol, I, for both, which may be confusing. Which inertia is meant (accelerational or bending) is usually clear from the context and obvious from the units: Second moment of area has units of length to the fourth power (m4) whereas moment of inertia has units of mass times length squared (kg-m2).

Explanation:
Consider the problem of determining the deflection of a beam of uniform material and uniform cross section. In particular, suppose we have a cantilevered I-beam with a weight on the end. If the beam is long, we assume the dominant deflection mode will be bending rather than shear. Thinking of the beam as made of elements along its length, like sliced bread, consider the load on one of these slices. The load will be a bending moment. Let the beam lie along the x axis with z pointing up. The bending moment would be about the y axis. The top will be in tension; the bottom will be in compression, and a horizontal line in the middle, parallel with the y axis will experience no load. We wish to describe the effects on beam stiffness due to the cross-sectional shape of the beam as a single number (or, in the case that we want to consider more than one loading direction, as a symmetric tensor, which we can represent as a 22 matrix); this will be the second moment of area. The unit for second moment of area is length to the fourth power (typically mm4, in4, etc.) Note:- When calculating moments of the section it is often practical to compute them in one coordinate system (typically bound to the section shape) and then transform to another one using coordinate transformations.

Parallel axis theorem

The parallel axis theorem can be used to determine the moment of an object about any axis, given the moment of inertia (second moment of area) of the object about the parallel axis through the object's center of mass (or centroid) and the perpendicular distance between the axes.

Ix = the second moment of area with respect to the x-axis

IxCG = the second moment of area with respect to an axis parallel to x and passing through the centroid of the shape (coincides with the neutral axis)

A = area of the shape d = the distance between the x-axis and the centroidal axis

Example - Second Moment of Area of Rectangular Cross Section

b = width (x-dimension), h = height (y-dimension)

b = width (x-dimension),

Polar Moment of Inertia (Moment of Inertia about the z axis)

The Polar Area Moment Of Inertia of a beams cross-sectional area measures the beams ability to resist torsion. The larger the Polar Moment of Inertia the less the beam will twist.

Moment of Inertia (Mass moment of Inertia)

The moment of inertia of an object about a given axis describes how difficult it is to change its angular motion about that axis. Therefore, it encompasses not just how much mass the object has overall, but how far each bit of mass is from the axis. The farther out the object's mass is, the more rotational inertia the object has, and the more force is required to change its rotation rate. For example, consider two hoops, A and B, made of the same material and of equal mass. Hoop A is larger in diameter but thinner than B. It requires more effort to accelerate hoop A (change its angular velocity) because its mass is distributed farther from its axis of rotation: mass that is farther out from that axis must, for a given angular velocity, move more quickly than mass closer in. So in this case, hoop A has a larger moment of inertia than hoop B. The moment of inertia of an object can change if its shape changes. A figure skater who begins a spin with arms outstretched provides a striking example. By pulling in her arms, she reduces her moment of inertia, causing her to spin faster (by the conservation of angular momentum). For instance, while a block of any shape will slide down a frictionless decline at the same rate, rolling objects may descend at different rates, depending on their moments of inertia. A hoop will descend more slowly than a solid disk of equal mass and radius because more of its mass is located far from the axis of rotation, and thus needs to move faster if the hoop rolls at the same angular velocity. (See the figure in the next page) The moment of inertia has two forms, a scalar form, I, (used when the axis of rotation is specified) and a more general tensor form that does not require the axis of rotation to be specified. The scalar moment of inertia, I, (often called simply the "moment of inertia") allows a succinct analysis of many simple problems in rotational dynamics, such as objects rolling down inclines and the behavior of pulleys.

However, for (more complicated) problems in which the axis of rotation can change, the scalar treatment is inadequate, and the tensor treatment must be used (although shortcuts are possible in special situations). Examples requiring such a treatment include gyroscopes, tops, and even satellites, all objects whose alignment can change. The moment of inertia is also called the mass moment of inertia (especially by mechanical engineers) to avoid confusion with the second moment of area, which is sometimes called the moment of inertia (especially by structural engineers). The easiest way to differentiate these quantities is through their units (kgm2 as opposed to m4).