The moment (or torque) of a force is its resulting rotational tendency, a vector quantity measured in . In 2-D, the moment points in the direction, but in 3D points in different directions.
Where the vector is the perpendicular distance between the force and some point :
A key principle in statics analysis is Varignon’s theorem, or the principle of moments, that suggests that the moment about a point is equal to the moments of the components of the force about the point. What this means is that we can decompose and solve for the moment according to , , and components individually.
In dynamics analysis, we have a handy formula that we can link with relative motion problems:
where is the mass moment of inertia and (alternatively ) is the angular acceleration.