<www.excelunusual.

com>
1
Calculating the moment of force by George Lungu
- This tutorial presents a few ways of calculating the moment of force or torque. It also
proves the torque of a couple is the same regardless of the position of the point about which
the torque is calculated. The implications in modeling aircraft dynamics are significant.
The cross product:
The cross product or vector product is a binary operation on two vectors
in three-dimensional space. It results in a vector which is normal to the
plane containing the first two vectors. The sense of the product vector is
the sense of advancement of a right hand screw turned as to overlap the
first vector to the second one on the shortest path. The magnitude is
equal to the area of the parallelogram defined by the two vectors.
The definition of moment of force:
The moment of force (sometimes named
torque) about a reference point is vector
equal to the cross product between the
position vector of the origin of the force (as
measured from the reference point) and the
force vector.
O
r
F

O
M

F r M
O

=
( ) u sin = F r M
O

P
<www.excelunusual.com>
2
- The three formulas for calculating the moment
of force F about point O are perfectly equivalent.
- The equivalency results from basic trigonometry
in the right triangles ONP and FCP.
P
F

O
N
T
F

C
F

P
F

x x
O
x
P
y
P
y
y
O
O
y
F

x
F

Three equivalent ways of calculating the moment of force:

T O
F OP M

=
( ) u sin = F OP M
O

u
F ON M
O

=
u
C
F
T
- Most of the times our setup is found in a Cartesian system
of coordinate where we already have the coordinates of the
points and the x-y components of the forces involved.
- Thats why the following formulas are very useful (we add
the moment contributions of the x and y force components).
A useful moment-of-force calculation formula in a 2D Cartesian reference:
( ) ( )
y O P x O P O
F x x F y y M

=
An important application:
- If a force acts on a body in an arbitrary point P, the body
will experience a linear acceleration of center of gravity and
an angular acceleration around the center of gravity both in
compliance with Newtons second law.
- If the body has a moment of inertia I, we can write the
angular form of Newtons law (where o is the angular
acceleration- the rate of change of angular speed):
F
F
T

= ) sin(u
OP
ON
= ) sin(u
CG
P
F

= I M
O
t d
d
dt
d
2
2
u e
o = =
<www.excelunusual.com>
3
The Couple:
-A Couple is a system of parallel, opposite and equal forces
with a resultant moment but no resultant force. Another
term for a couple is a pure moment. Its effect is to create
rotation without any acceleration of the centre of mass.
-The resultant moment of a couple is called a torque. This is
not to be confused with the term torque as it is used in
physics, where it is merely a synonym of moment. Instead,
torque is a special case of moment. Torque has special
properties that moment does not have, in particular the
property of being independent of reference point about
which it is being calculated. - Wikipedia
The end.
F

F d = t
- The moment of a couple, called torque,
is independent on
the reference point
and its magnitude is equal to:
d
F

x
y
O
1
r

2
r

2 1
r r

Demo:
- If we calculate the resultant momentum of the two
opposite forces about an arbitrary point O we can write:
2 2 1 1 2 1
F r F r M M M
O O resultant

+ = + = = t
- Since the forces are equal, parallel but opposite we have:
( ) F r r F r F r

= =
2 1 2 1
t
- But the vector difference is only dependent on the relative position of the force origins and not on the
position of point O. It is proves that the torque is independent on the position of the point with respect
to which it is calculated.
- As an important implication is the fact that the aerodynamic moment of the wing or stabilizer
will directly add to the total moment of an airplane without any scaling.