Overview

The area property program is based on contour integrals which when defined in an anti-clockwise sense create a solid area and when defined in a clockwise sense create a hole in a solid area.

Care should be taken to ensure that when defining a hole that it is defined over a solid area. Solid areas are shown in magenta and holes in white, see below for screen capture.

The program calculates area, centre of gravity, second moments of area and rotational moments of area.



Creating the Area

Create the base solid shapes(s) first, by defining the points in an anti-clockwise sense. Then create the holes by defining shapes inside the solid shapes you just defined.

The properties of the area are calculated automatically as you generate your shape.

Note the program uses the sun microsystems java plugin which you may not have, the program will ascertain this and if it is missing, will direct you to the relevant sun site.

Go to the beam program