On the choice of physically realizable parameters when studying the dynamics of spherical and ellipsoidal rigid bodies

Abstract

The paper presents necessary and sufficient conditions whose must be satisfied by the main geometric and dynamic parameters of spherical, ellipsoidal, or parabolic rigid bodies for their physical realization. The main parameters are both the geometric characteristics of the body boundary (radius of the sphere, semiaxes of the ellipsoid, principal curvatures at the vertex, and the paraboloid center location on its symmetry axis) and the body mass and dynamic characteristics (body mass, displacement of the body center of mass from the center on the paraboloid symmetry axis or from the sphere or ellipsoid center of symmetry, the orientation of the principal central axes of inertia with respect to the principal geometric axes of the shell, and the values of the principal central moments of inertia). The physical realization is understood as the existence of an actual distribution of positive masses inside the sphere, ellipsoid, or paraboloid for which the above-listed characteristics of the body are equal to the chosen ones. Several examples from earlier-published papers dealing with the dynamics of spherical, ellipsoidal, or parabolic bodies with physically unrealizable parameters are given.