Paper 2, Section II, A
Consider a rigid body with principal moments of inertia .
(a) Derive Euler's equations of torque-free motion
with components of the angular velocity given in the body frame.
(b) Show that rotation about the second principal axis is unstable if .
(c) The principal moments of inertia of a uniform cylinder of radius , height and mass about its centre of mass are
The cylinder has two identical cylindrical holes of radius drilled along its length. The axes of symmetry of the holes are at a distance from the axis of symmetry of the cylinder such that and . All three axes lie in a single plane. Compute the principal moments of inertia of the body.
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