Angular velocity

Angular velocity
In physics, the angular velocity is a vector quantity (more precisely, a pseudovector) which specifies the angular speed of an object and the axis about which the object is rotating. The SI unit of angular velocity is radians per second, although it may be measured in other units such as degrees per second, revolutions per second, revolutions per minute, degrees per hour, etc. It is sometimes also called the rotational velocity and its magnitude the rotational speed, typically measured in cycles or rotations per unit time (e.g. revolutions per minute). Angular velocity is usually represented by the symbol omega (, rarely ). The direction of the angular velocity vector is perpendicular to the plane of rotation, in a direction which is usually specified by the right-hand rule.[1]

Particle in two dimensions

The angular velocity of the particle at P with respect to the origin O is determined by the perpendicular component of the velocity vector v.

Angular velocity

The angular velocity of a particle

The angular velocity of a particle in a 2-dimensional plane is the easiest to understand. As shown in the figure on the right (typically expressing the angular measures and in radians), if we draw a line from the origin (O) to the particle (P), then the velocity vector (v) of the particle will have a component along the radius (radial component, v) and a component perpendicular to the radius (cross-radial component, v ). However, it must be remembered that the velocity vector can be also decomposed into tangential and normal components. A radial motion produces no change in the direction of Angular velocity describes the speed of rotation and the orientation the particle relative to the origin, so for purposes of of the instantaneous axis about which the rotation occurs. The direction of the angular velocity pseudovector will be along the axis finding the angular velocity the parallel (radial) of rotation; in this case (counter-clockwise rotation) the vector points component can be ignored. Therefore, the rotation is up. completely produced by the tangential motion (like that of a particle moving along a circumference), and the angular velocity is completely determined by the perpendicular (tangential) component. It can be seen that the rate of change of the angular position of the particle is related to the cross-radial velocity by:[1]

Utilizing , the angle between vectors v and v, or equivalently as the angle between vectors r and v, gives: Combining the above two equations and defining the angular velocity as =d/dt yields:

In two dimensions the angular velocity is a single number which has no direction. A single number which has no direction is either a scalar or a pseudoscalar, the difference being that a scalar does not change its sign when the x and y axes are exchanged (or inverted), while a pseudoscalar does. The angle as well as the angular velocity is a pseudoscalar. The positive direction of rotation is taken, by convention, to be in the direction towards the y axis from the x axis. If the axes are inverted, but the sense of a rotation does not, then the sign of the angle of rotation, and therefore the angular velocity as well, will change. It is important to note that the pseudoscalar angular velocity of a particle depends upon the choice of the origin.

Angular velocity

Particle in three dimensions

In three dimensions, the angular velocity becomes a bit more complicated. The angular velocity in this case is generally thought of as a vector, or more precisely, a pseudovector. It now has not only a magnitude, but a direction as well. The magnitude is the angular speed, and the direction describes the axis of rotation. The right-hand rule indicates the positive direction of the angular velocity pseudovector. Being an unitary vector over the instantaneous rotation axis, so that from the top of the vector the rotation is can be defined as: counter-clock-wise the angular velocity vector

Just as in the two dimensional case, a particle will have a component of its velocity along the radius from the origin to the particle, and another component perpendicular to that radius. The combination of the origin point and the perpendicular component of the velocity defines a plane of rotation in which the behavior of the particle (for that instant) appears just as it does in the two dimensional case. The axis of rotation is then a line normal to this plane, and this axis defined the direction of the angular velocity pseudovector, while the magnitude is the same as the pseudoscalar value found in the 2-dimensional case. Using the unit vector defined before, the angular velocity vector may be written in a manner similar to that for two dimensions:

which, by the definition of the cross product, can be written:

Addition of angular velocity vectors It is possible to define an addition operation for angular velocity vectors using composition of movements. If a point rotates with in a frame which rotates itself with angular speed respect an external frame . , we can define the addition of like the angular velocity vector of the point respect

With this operation defined like this, angular velocity, which is a pseudovector, becomes also a real vector because it has two operations: An internal operation (addition) which is associative, commutative, distributive and with zero and unity elements An external operation (external product), with the normal properties for a external product. This is the definition of a vector space. Therefore pseudovectors are a subset of the real vectors, despite their name suggesting the opposite. The only property that presents difficulties to prove is the commutativity of the addition. This can be proven from the fact that the velocity tensor W (see below) is skew-symmetric. Therefore is a rotation matrix and in a time dt is an infinitesimal rotation matrix. Therefore it can be expanded as

The composition of rotations is not commutative, but when they are infinitesimal rotations the first order approximation of the previous series can be taken and , and therefore

Angular velocity

Rotating frames
Given a rotating frame composed by three unitary vectors, all the three must have the same angular speed in any instant. In such a frame each vector is a particular case of the previous case (moving particle), in which the module of the vector is constant. Though it is just a particular case of the previous one, is a very important one for its relationship with the rigid body study, and special tools have been developed for this case. There are two possible ways to describe the angular velocity of a rotating frame. The angular velocity vector and the angular velocity tensor. Both entities are related and they can be calculated from each other.

Angular velocity vector for a frame

It is defined as the angular velocity of each of the vectors of the frame, in a consistent way with the general definition. It is known by the Euler's rotation theorem that for a rotating frame there exists an instantaneous axis of rotation in any instant. In the case of a frame, the angular velocity vector is over the instantaneous axis of rotation. Any transversal section of a plane perpendicular to this axis has to behave as a two dimensional rotation. Thus, the magnitude of the angular velocity vector at a given time t is consistent with the two dimensions case. Angular velocity is a vector defining an addition operation. components can be calculated from the derivatives of the parameters defining the moving frame (Euler angles or rotation matrices) Addition of angular velocity vectors in frames As in the general case, the addition operation for angular velocity vectors can be defined using movement composition. In the case of rotating frames, the movement composition is simpler than the general case because the final matrix is always a product of rotation matrices.

Schematic construction for addition of angular velocity vectors for rotating frames

As in the general case, addition is commutative Components from the vectors of the frame Substituting in the expression

any vector e of the frame we obtain

, and therefore from the

As the columns of the matrix of the frame are the components of its vectors, this allows also to calculate matrix of the frame and its derivative.

Angular velocity Components from Euler angles The components of the angular velocity pseudovector were first calculated by Leonhard Euler using his Euler angles and an intermediate frame made out of the intermediate frames of the construction: One axis of the reference frame (the precession axis) The line of nodes of the moving frame respect the reference frame (nutation axis) One axis of the moving frame (the intrinsic rotation axis) Euler proved that the projections of the angular velocity pseudovector over these three axes was the derivative of its associated angle (which is equivalent to decompose the instant rotation in three instantaneous Euler rotations). Therefore[2] :
Diagram showing Euler frame in green

This basis is not orthonormal and it is difficult to use, but now the velocity vector can be changed to the fixed frame or to the moving frame with just a change of bases. For example, changing to the mobile frame:

where IJK are unit vectors for the frame fixed in the moving body. Components from infinitesimal rotation matrices The components of the angular velocity vector can be calculated from infinitesimal rotations (if available) as follows: As any rotation matrix has a single real eigenvalue, which is +1, this eigenvalue shows the rotation axis. Its module can be deduced from the value of the infinitesimal rotation.

Angular velocity tensor

It can be introduced from rotation matrices. Any vector (as defined before) satisfies: that rotates around an axis with an angular speed vector

We can introduce here the angular velocity tensor associated to the angular speed

This tensor W(t) will act as if it were a

operator :

Given the orientation matrix A(t) of a frame, we can obtain its instant angular velocity tensor W as follows. We know that:

As angular speed must be the same for the three vectors of a rotating frame A(t), we can write for all the three:

Angular velocity

And therefore the angular velocity tensor we are looking for is:

Properties of angular velocity tensors

In general, the angular velocity in an n-dimensional space is the time derivative of the angular displacement tensor which is a second rank skew-symmetric tensor. This tensor W will have n(n-1)/2 independent components and this number is the dimension of the Lie algebra of the Lie group of rotations of an n-dimensional inner product space.[3] Exponential of W In three dimensions angular velocity can be represented by a pseudovector because second rank tensors are dual to pseudovectors in three dimensions. As . This can be read as a differential equation that defines A(t) knowing W(t).

And if the angular speed is constant then W is also constant and the equation can be integrated. The result is:

which shows a connection with the Lie group of rotations. W is skew-symmetric It is possible to prove that angular velocity tensor are skew symmetric matrices. Being R(t) a rotation matrix, and taking the time derivative of , because R(t) is a rotation matrix : , with

Applying the formula (AB)t = BtAt:

Thus, W is the negative of its transpose, which implies it is a skew symmetric matrix. Duality respect the velocity vector The tensor is a matrix with this structure:

As it is a skew symmetric matrix it has a Hodge dual vector which is precisely the previous angular velocity vector :

Angular velocity

Coordinate-free description
At any instant, vectors , the angular velocity tensor is a linear map between the position vectors and their velocity of a rigid body rotating around the origin: parameter, and regard and as elements of the same 3-dimensional Euclidean vector is the following.

where we omitted the space .

The relation between this linear map and the angular velocity pseudovector Because of W is the derivative of an orthogonal transformation, the

bilinear form is skew-symmetric. (Here stands for the scalar product). So we can apply the fact of exterior algebra that there is a unique linear form on that , where is the wedge product of and . Taking the dual vector L* of L we get

Introducing

, as the Hodge dual of L*, and apply further Hodge dual identities we arrive at

where

by definition. Because is an arbitrary vector, from nondegeneracy of scalar product follows

Angular velocity

Angular velocity as a vector field

For angular velocity tensor maps velocities to positions, it is a vector field. In particular, this vector field is a Killing vector field belonging to an element of the Lie algebra so(3) of the 3-dimensional rotation group, SO(3). This element of so(3) can also be regarded as the angular velocity vector.

Rigid body considerations

The same equations for the angular speed can be obtained reasoning over a rotating rigid body. Here is not assumed that the rigid body rotates around the origin. Instead it can be supposed rotating around an arbitrary point which is moving with a linear velocity V(t) in each instant. To obtain the equations it is convenient to imagine a rigid body attached to the frames and consider a coordinate system that is fixed with respect to the rigid body. Then we will study the coordinate transformations between this coordinate and the fixed "laboratory" system.

As shown in the figure on the right, the lab system's origin is at point O, the rigid body system origin is at O' and the vector from O to O' is R. A particle (i) in the rigid body is located at point P and the vector position of this particle is Ri in the lab frame, and at position ri in the body frame. It is seen that the position of the particle can be written:

Position of point P located in the rigid body (shown in blue). Ri is the position with respect to the lab frame, centered at O and ri is the position with respect to the rigid body frame, centered at O' . The origin of the rigid body frame is at vector position R from the lab frame.

The defining characteristic of a rigid body is that the distance between any two points in a rigid body is unchanging in time. This means that the length of the vector is unchanging. By Euler's rotation theorem, we may replace the vector with where is a 3x3 rotation matrix and is the position of the particle at some fixed point in time, say t=0. This replacement is useful, because now it is only the rotation matrix which is changing in time and not the reference vector , as the rigid body rotates about point O'. Also, since the three columns of the rotation matrix represent the three versors of a reference frame rotating together with the rigid body, any rotation about any axis becomes now visible, while the vector would not rotate if the rotation axis were parallel to it, and hence it would only describe a rotation about an axis perpendicular to it (i.e., it would not see the component of the angular velocity pseudovector parallel to it, and would only allow the computation of the component perpendicular to it). The position of the particle is now written as: Taking the time derivative yields the velocity of the particle:

where Vi is the velocity of the particle (in the lab frame) and V is the velocity of O' (the origin of the rigid body frame). Since is a rotation matrix its inverse is its transpose. So we substitute :

Angular velocity

or

where

is the previous angular velocity tensor.

It can be proved that this is skew symmetric matrix, so we can take its dual to get a 3 dimensional pseudovector which is precisely the previous angular velocity vector :

Substituting for W into the above velocity expression, and replacing matrix multiplication by an equivalent cross product:

It can be seen that the velocity of a point in a rigid body can be divided into two terms the velocity of a reference point fixed in the rigid body plus the cross product term involving the angular velocity of the particle with respect to the reference point. This angular velocity is the "spin" angular velocity of the rigid body as opposed to the angular velocity of the reference point O' about the origin O.

Consistency
We have supposed that the rigid body rotates around an arbitrary point. We should prove that the angular velocity previously defined is independent from the choice of origin, which means that the angular velocity is an intrinsic property of the spinning rigid body.

Proving the independence of angular velocity from choice of origin

See the graph to the right: The origin of lab frame is O, while O1 and O2 are two fixed points on the rigid body, whose velocity is and respectively. Suppose the angular velocity with respect to O1 and O2 is and

Angular velocity respectively. Since point P and O2 have only one velocity,

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The above two yields that

Since the point P (and thus

) is arbitrary, it follows that

If the reference point is the instantaneous axis of rotation the expression of velocity of a point in the rigid body will have just the angular velocity term. This is because the velocity of instantaneous axis of rotation is zero. An example of instantaneous axis of rotation is the hinge of a door. Another example is the point of contact of a pure rolling spherical rigid body.

References
[1] Hibbeler, Russell C. (2009). Engineering Mechanics (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=tOFRjXB-XvMC& pg=PA314& dq=angular+ velocity& rview=1). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. pp.314, 153. ISBN9780136077916. .(EM1) [2] K.S.HEDRIH: Leonhard Euler (17071783) and rigid body dynamics (http:/ / www. vti. mod. gov. rs/ ntp/ rad2007/ 3-07/ hedr/ hedr. pdf) [3] Rotations and Angular Momentum (http:/ / math. ucr. edu/ home/ baez/ classical/ galilei2. pdf) on the Classical Mechanics page of the website of John Baez (http:/ / math. ucr. edu/ home/ baez/ README. html), especially Questions 1 and 2.

Symon, Keith (1971). Mechanics. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA. ISBN0-201-07392-7. Landau, L.D.; Lifshitz, E.M. (1997). Mechanics. Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN0-750-62896-0.

External links
A college text-book of physics (http://books.google.com/books?id=QBc5AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA88& dq=angular+velocity+of+a+particle&lr=&rview=1) By Arthur Lalanne Kimball (Angular Velocity of a particle)

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