An analysis of the rotation of thin hoops in non-inertial

frames
Muhammad Rehman
December 5, 2015

Abstract
In this project we shall explore the rotation of a thin loop taking into account
the Torque applied by the Coriolis force for the special case when the hoop is
perfectly horizontal and for the more general case when the orientation of our
hoop is arbitrary. We shall find how the Torque in the former orientation affects
the rotation rates at t = 0.

Introduction

To begin our analysis of the rotation of thin hoops we shall begin by finding the
moments and products of inertia as given by the expressions in [1]. Since the earth
is a rotation, non-inertial frame we will take into account how the Coriolis Force,
which is a trade-off for working in rotating frames. We shall consider the Torque
applied by the Coriolis force and its effects on the rotation of our hoop by making
use of Eulers equations.
For our analysis of the effect of our Coriolis force on an arbitrarily oriented hoop
we shall use results from Linear Algebra, specifically, the rotation matrices in 3
Dimensions about the x and z axes.

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2.1

Equations & Analysis

Finding the Inertia Tensor of a Thin Hoop

We shall begin our investigation of the rotation of bodies in non-inertial frames,

such as the earth by examining the a very simple problem. We will consider the
special case of the rotation of a thin hoop of radius R and mass M with angular
velocity
~ along the z axis as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: This figure shows the orientation and rotation of a thin hoop of mass M
and radius R

The products of inertia Ixz , Iyz and Ixy all evaluate to zero since each contribution
from a mass located at (x, y, z) is cancelled out by the contribution from a mass
element located diametrically across [1]
We shall now calculate the moments of inertia Izz ,Ixx and Iyy where =
our linear density and is the location of our mass element from polar axis
Z

(y 2 + x2 ) d = M R2 ,

Izz =
0

1
(y 2 + z 2 ) d = M R2 ,
2
0
Z 2
1
=
(x2 + z 2 ) d = M R2
2
0

Ixx =
Iyy

M
2R

is

Therefore our Inertia Tensor I for the thin loop is given by the following matrix

2MR

I=

2.2

0
0

0
0
1
2
0
2MR
0
M R2

Calculating the Torque applied by the Coriolis force

We shall now consider how the rotation of the thin hoop is affected when we take
into account the torque ~ applied by the coriolis force F~cor due to the rotation of
the Earth.
~ denote the angular velocity of the Earth and the co-latitude of the hoop.
Let
We are still considering the case where the hoop lies horizontally on the xy plane
and the hoops angular velocity
~ is along the z axis as shown in figure 2 and 3

Figure 2: The co-latitude of the hoop given by

Figure 3: The hoop is oriented horizontally on the xy plane with its angular velocity
~
along the z-axis. A mass element is at an angle of from the polar axis

Consider a mass element dm on the hoop. We have the set of following expressions for this problem where ~r is the position of the mass element on the hoop and
~v is the elements velocity.

rcos()
~r = rsin() ,
0

0

~ = 0 ,

0
~ = sin() ,

cos()

rsin()
~v =
~ ~r = rcos() ,
0

Therefore, by making use of the above expressions we can find the Coriolis force
~ applied on the
on the mass element dF~cor and we can then obtain the Torque d
element. Finally we obtain the Torque applied on the hoop by integrating over the
whole hoop (i.e. from = 0 to 2). Keep in mind that is our co-latitude and
is the angle from the polar axis of our mass element dm

cos()cos()
~ = 2dmr sin()cos() ,
dF~cor = 2dm~v
sin()sin()

sin2 ()sin()
~ = ~r dF~cor = 2dmr2 sin()cos()sin() ,
d
0

~ =

mr2 sin()
~ =
,
0
d
0

(1)

(2)

(3)

The expression in (3) indicates that the Torque applied on the hoop at its initial orientation only has an x component. We shall now apply Eulers Equations in
the next section and see how the components of the angular velocity
~ relative to
the body frame change.

2.3

Applying Eulers Equations with Torque due to Coriolis

To reiterate the results from Section 2.1 and 2.2 we have that the Inertia Tensor for
our hoop is given by the expression in (4) and the Torque on the hoop initially is
given by the expression in (3)

2MR

I=

0
0

0
0
1 0 0
1
2
0 = 0 2 0
2MR
0
M R2
0 0 3

(4)

It is worth noting that the Inertia tensor we have is a diagonal matrix and so
this implies that the axes along which our hoop (i.e the z,y,x axes) initially lay are
the principal axes. That is, the axes along the normal to the plane on which the
hoop rests and two orthogonal axes to the normal are the principal axes.
Applying Eulers equations gives the following result

1 1 (0) = x ,
2 2 (0) = 0,
3 3 (0) = 0,
= 1 (0) = 2sin(),
= 2 (0) = 0,
= 3 (0) = 0,

Analysis: Hence we have that initially at the instant t = 0, the torque due to
the Coriolis force only causes the x component of to change whereas the other two
components remain constant. However, it is worth noting that our Coriolis force
depends on the orientation of our hoop and since the orientation has now changed
from the initial setup. The Torque applied may now have a y and z component too
which makes the motion after t = 0 unpredictable unless we solve the problem by
considering the torque due to Coriolis force for arbitrary orientations which we shall
explore in the next section

2.4

Torque due to Coriolis Force for arbitrary orientation

Let us begin by considering our hoop in an orientation as shown by Figure 4 where

e~1 is our normal vector to the plane our hoop lies on (i.e one of the principal axes).
is our tilt angle and is the angle from the polar axis. e~1 can be treated as a
rotation of the normal vector which previously was aligned with the z axis. Note
that the orientation of our hoop can completely be described by the angles and
which represent the tilt and rotation about polar axis of our normal vector.

Figure 4: Our normal vector e~1 rotated, represents an arbitrary orientation of our hoop

Therefore to describe the position, angular velocity and velocity of our previously
considered mass element in Section 2.2 along with the Coriolis Force and Torque on
the mass element and therefore the whole hoop, we will have to perform a transformation.
It is worth noting that the normal vector has been Rotated about the x axis (Tilt)
by the angle and then rotated about the z axis (Rotation from the polar axis)
by an angle
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The Rotation matrices we will apply to our previously defined quantities (in
Section 2.2) are given below

1
0
0
Rx () = 0 cos() sin()
0 sin() cos()

cos() sin() 0
Rz () = sin() cos() 0
0
0
1

(5)

cos() sin()cos() sin()sin()

e = Rz ()Rx () = sin() cos()cos()
cos()sin()
R
0
sin()
cos()

(6)

(7)

e to our previous quantities we get the

Therefore by applying the rotation matrix R
new set of quantities. Warning: The expressions start to get very complicated.

sin()cos() cos()sin()cos()
~ve = R~
ev = r sin()sin() + cos()cos()cos()
cos()sin()

(8)

~
~ =
dFec or = 2dm~ve

sin()sin()cos() + cos()cos()cos()cos() + cos()sin()sin()

(9)
cos()sin()cos() + cos()cos()sin()cos()
2dm r
sin()sin()cos() sin()cos()sin()cos()
Where is the co-latitude, is the angle of the mass element from the hoops
polar axis, the tilt of our normal and - the rotation of our normal about the x
axis.

As seen by (9) the expressions get very complicated and although the total Torque
applied on the hoop can be calculated in a similar fashion as it was in Section 2.2,
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~e
we shall not attempt it. Therefore, once we have found our Torque
applied by the
Coriolis force for the given arbitrary orientation of our hoop, we can then make use
of Eulers equations to determine how the rotation axes change with time. Due to
the complexity of the problem, we shall conclude our exploration of this problem.

Maple Plots

Figure 5: A plot showing how 1 (0) (y axis) varies with the co-latitude of our hoop (x
axis) for a hoop of radius 1m mass 1kg and of 2rads 1

Conclusions

We have partially analysed the rotation of a thin hoop horizontally by finding

the Torque applied by the Coriolis Force. We then applied Eulers Equations and
saw how the components of angular velocity as seen in body frame, vary at time
t = 0. In Section 2.3, We calculated the Coriolis force on a mass element for a
hoop oriented arbitrarily. The findings of this project can be extended to find the
complete solution for the rotation of a thin hoop and by resolving Eulers equations
we can explicitly define how the angular velocity
~ varies with time.
Once we have found the general solution for the rotation of thin loops, we can
extend our results and procedure to understand the motion of bodies of similar
shape and symmetry. Our results could perhaps be useful in the analysis of the
motion disc-shaped satellites.
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References
[1] Taylor, J. R. Classical Mechanics. University Science Books, 2005.

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