A Treatise on the Theory of Screws

Definitive reference on screw theory with important applications to complex engineering problems.

Robert Stawell Ball (Author)

9780521636506, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 September 1998

594 pages, 50 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm, 0.785 kg

"The work is of renewed interest in that the theory of screws has recently found new pertinence as a mathematical resource for complex engineering problems." Mechanical Engineering

Originally published by Cambridge University Press in 1900, A Treatise on the Theory of Screws is the definitive reference on screw theory. It gives a very complete geometrical treatment of the problems of small movements in rigid dynamics. In recent years the theory of screws has emerged as a novel mathematical resource for addressing complex engineering problems, with important applications to robotics, multibody dynamics, mechanical design, computational kinematics, and hybrid automatic control. The author, Sir Robert Stawell Ball, was born in Dublin in 1840 and studied at Trinity College, Dublin. When the Royal College of Science was founded in Dublin in 1867, Ball became the first professor of applied mathematics and mechanism. In 1874 he was appointed Royal Astronomer of Ireland, and in 1892 he assumed the Lowndean Chair of Astronomy and Geometry and the Directorship of the University Observatory at Cambridge, where he remained until his death in 1913.

1. Twists and wrenches
2. The cylindroid
3. Reciprocal screws
4. Screw co-ordinates
5. The representation of the cylindroid by a circle
6. The equilibrium of a rigid body
7. The principal screws of inertia
8. The potential
9. Harmonic screws
10. Freedom of the first order
11. Freedom of the second order
12. Plane representation of dynamical problems concerning a body with two degrees of freedom
13. The geometry of the cylindroid
14. Freedom of the third order
15. The plane representation of freedom of the third order
16. Freedom of the fourth order
17. Freedom of the fifth order
18. Freedom of the sixth order
19. Homographic screw systems
20. Emanants and pitch invariants
21. Developments of the dynamical theory
22. The geometrical theory
23. Various exercises
24. The theory of screw-chains
25. The theory of permanent screws
26. An introduction to the theory of screws in non-Euclidian space
Appendices
Bibliographical notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Mechanical engineering [TGB]