The Rigid Body Motion Table in a Matrix Form

Svetoslav Zabunov, Petar Getsov, Maya Gaydarova

Abstract: Rigid body motion table is a celebrated piece of knowledge and educational cornerstone found in almost all theoretical mechanics textbooks. What these tables lack is the complete presentation of all quantities describing the rigid body motion, namely the orientation or the angular position of the rigid body. This omission is due to the vector formalism that is used. To correct this inconsistency the authors show how the same table should be written using matrix formalism. The authors also show how the fixed table helps students to much easier derivate frequently used formulas and equations regarding theoretical mechanics and more specifically rigid body motion.

Keywords: Rigid body motion table, Rigid body kinematics, Rigid body dynamics