In a vehicle suspension, roll moment is the moment of inertia of the vehicle's sprung mass (the portion of its weight supported by the suspension). The roll moment is the product of the sprung mass and the square of the distance between the vehicle's roll center and its center of mass. If the vehicle is subjected to centrifugal forces, such as in a turn, the roll moment will cause the body to rotate (lean) towards the outside of the turn.
In aeronautics, the roll moment is the aerodynamic force applied at a distance from an aircraft's center of mass that causes the aircraft to undergo angular acceleration about its roll axis. The roll axis is usually defined as the longitudinal axis, which runs from the nose to the tail of the aircraft. A roll moment can be the result of wind gusts, control surfaces such as ailerons, or simply by flying at an angle of sideslip. See flight dynamics.
Famous quotes containing the words roll and/or moment:
“Let us have a good many maples and hickories and scarlet oaks, then, I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of bunting in the gun-house be all the colors a village can display? A village is not complete, unless it have these trees to mark the season in it. They are important, like the town clock. A village that has them not will not be found to work well. It has a screw loose, an essential part is wanting.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A set of ideas, a point of view, a frame of reference is in space only an intersection, the state of affairs at some given moment in the consciousness of one man or many men, but in time it has evolving form, virtually organic extension. In time ideas can be thought of as sprouting, growing, maturing, bringing forth seed and dying like plants.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)