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First product of inertia of right-angled triangle

Short answer

By integration of a vertical strip, the product of inertia about the axes along the base and height (at the right-angle corner) is I_xy = b²h²/24. About centroidal axes it becomes -b²h²/72.

Find from the first principle product of inertia for a right angled triangle with base 'b' and height 'h' along XX and YY axes. (base and height are collinear with XX and YY axes respectively).

Take a right-angled triangle with the right-angle corner at the origin, base bb along the xx-axis and height hh along the yy-axis. The hypotenuse has equation y=h(1−xb)y = h\left(1 - \dfrac{x}{b}\right).

 y
 h|\
  | \
  |  \
  |   \
  O----- b   x

Derivation from first principles

Take a vertical strip of width dxdx at distance xx, of height y1=h(1−xb)y_1 = h\left(1 - \dfrac{x}{b}\right). Its area is dA=y1 dxdA = y_1\,dx. The product of inertia of the strip about the xx and yy axes is obtained by applying the parallel-axis theorem to the strip (its own IxyI_{xy} is zero, as it is symmetrical about its centre line parallel to yy):

dIxy=(dA) x⋅y12=x y12 y1 dx=x y122 dxdI_{xy} = (dA)\,x\cdot\frac{y_1}{2} = x\,\frac{y_1}{2}\,y_1\,dx = \frac{x\,y_1^2}{2}\,dx

Hence

Ixy=∫0bx h22(1−xb)2dx=h22∫0b(x−2x2b+x3b2)dxI_{xy} = \int_0^b \frac{x\,h^2}{2}\left(1 - \frac{x}{b}\right)^2dx = \frac{h^2}{2}\int_0^b\left(x - \frac{2x^2}{b} + \frac{x^3}{b^2}\right)dx =h22[b22−2b23+b24]=h22⋅b212= \frac{h^2}{2}\left[\frac{b^2}{2} - \frac{2b^2}{3} + \frac{b^2}{4}\right] = \frac{h^2}{2}\cdot\frac{b^2}{12} Ixy=b2h224\boxed{I_{xy} = \frac{b^2h^2}{24}}

(positive, since the triangle lies in the first quadrant). About the centroidal axes, Iˉxy=b2h224−bh2⋅b3⋅h3=−b2h272\bar I_{xy} = \dfrac{b^2h^2}{24} - \dfrac{bh}{2}\cdot\dfrac{b}{3}\cdot\dfrac{h}{3} = -\dfrac{b^2h^2}{72}.

✓ Answer checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (high effort)

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