Instant Centre of Rotation - Pole of A Planar Displacement

Pole of A Planar Displacement

The instant center can be considered the limiting case of the pole of a planar displacement.

The planar displacement of a body from position 1 to position 2 is defined by the combination of a planar rotation and planar translation. For any planar displacement there is a point in the moving body that is in the same place before and after the displacement. This point is the pole of the planar displacement, and the displacement can be viewed as a rotation around this pole.

Construction for the pole of a planar displacement: First, select two points A and B in the moving body and locate the corresponding points in the two positions; see the illustration. Construct the perpendicular bisectors to the two segments A1A2 and B1B2. The intersection P of these two bisectors is the pole of the planar displacement. Notice that A1 and A2 lie on a circle around P. This is true for the corresponding positions of every point in the body.

If the two positions of a body are separated by an instant of time in a planar movement, then the pole of a displacement becomes the instant center. In this case, the segments constructed between the instantaneous positions of the points A and B become the velocity vectors V_A and V_B. The lines perpendicular to these velocity vectors intersect in the instant center.