Moment - Vector Product

You have learned in the past basic operations for numbers such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. These operations allowed you to do useful things with numbers. As we have previously discussed, vectors are different entities and the rules/operations learned for normal numbers no longer apply. Although some operations such as addition have the same name, the operation itself is carried out in a different way (i.e. head to tail method). Likewise there are operations for vectors that have no counterpart in ordinary numbers. One of these is used to find the moment of a force about a point. The two vectors P and Q shown form a plane. The angle between their directions is (0 < < 180o). V

Q P The vector product P Q produces a new vector V ( V = P Q ) whose magnitude and direction are given by | V | = PQsin direction: perpendicular to the plane of P and Q The perpendicular to a plane can be in either of two opposing directions and the correct one as shown above is given by the right hand rule.

Cross Product Properties

The cross product exists only for vectors and does not exist for ordinary numbers. The cross product satisfies the following rules. (PQ)=-(QP) P(Q1+Q2)= PQ1+ PQ2 (PQ)S P(QS) It is very important to note the negative sign in the first rule. If you switch the order, the resulting vector will point in the opposite direction.

Unit Vectors
The cross product for unit vectors produces a new unit vector perpendicular to the ones crossed. For i, j and k, this can be remembered by the figure

j
That is to say if you move counter clockwise i j = k or k i = j while if you move clockwise the result is negative (j i = -k or i k = -j ).

Rectangular Components
In some cases the vectors P and Q are given in rectangular components as P = Px i + Py j + Pz k Q = Qx i + Qy j + Qz k In this case you can work out the cross product term by term as V = P Q = ( Px i + Py j + Pz k ) ( Qx i + Q y j + Q z k ) = i ( PyQz PzQy ) + j ( PzQx PxQz ) + k ( PxQy PyQx ) The above formula for V can also be obtained from the 3 3 determinant i V Px Qx j Py Qy k Pz Qz

Moment of a Force
Vector (or cross) product is useful for finding the moment of a force about a point. Moment is a vector. The figure below shows the moment vector M o of force F about point O. Mo

O d r B A

The magnitude of the moment of F about O is defined as M o = Fd, where d is the shortest distance from O to the line of the force. The direction of M o is perpendicular to the plane formed by the line of F and point O. The vector M o can be found from the cross product Mo=rF where r is a vector from point O to any point (choose a convenient one) along the line of F. The correct direction of M o can be found by the right hand rule.