Ari Rahadyan

13120180

Chapter 3
Body segment parameters
- Anthropometry is the discipline concerned with the measurement of the physical
characteristics of humans.
- Before a kinetic analysis of human movement is possible, each segment’s physical
characteristics and inertial properties must be determined.
Method for measuring and estimating body segment parameters
- A major concern for biomechanists is the assumption that body segments behave as
rigid bodies during movements. This assumption obviously is not valid.
- It is also common to model some body parts as single rigid bodies despite the fact that
they consist of several segments.
- Inertial properties (mass, center of mass, moment of inertia) are difficult to determine for
a particular living person. If you were to quantify these properties for a robot, you would
separate each segment and analyze it individually by performing specific tests. Because
this is not possible for living persons, indirect methods must be used.

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- Another approach to determining inertial properties and then estimating body segment
parameters involves scanning the living body with various radiation techniques.
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- Kinematic techniques are methods that measure kinematic characteristics to indirectly
determine the inertial properties of segments.
Two-dimensional computational methods
- The standard method for computing segment mass is to weigh the subject and then
multiply the total body mass by the proportion that each segment contributes to the total.

- Segment mass is defined as

- Center of gravity and center of mass are in essentially the same locations. In
biomechanics, the terms are used interchangeably
- A difference occurs only when a body is far from the earth’s surface or otherwise
affected by a large gravitational source.
- The center of gravity is the point where a motionless body, if supported at that point, will
remain balanced—the balance point of a body.
- In other words, the translational motion of a rigid body concerns only the motion of the
body’s center of gravity
- The body’s shape and structure can be ignored and only its center of gravity needs to be
quantified.
- To simplify and generalize the process of calculating segment centers of gravity,
Dempster (1955) developed the technique of representing the distances from each
endpoint of a segment to that segment’s center of gravity as proportions (R values) of
the segment’s length (L).

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- The mass moment of inertia, also called rotational inertia, is the resistance of a body to
change in its rotational motion. It is the angular or rotational equivalent of mass.
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- Moments of inertia are needed whenever the rotational motion of a body is investigated.
Moment of inertia is not as important a measure as mass because, relatively speaking,
moment of inertia has less influence on the motion of human bodies than mass does.
- This is because humans are more often concerned with translational motions and
because human movements rarely rotate at high rates.

- Moment of inertia

- Radius of gyration

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- Segments moment of inerti for rotations about the segments center of gravity

- Parallel axis theorem

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- The center of percussion is not strictly speaking a body segment parameter.

- Coefficient of restitution
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Three-dimensional computational methods
- masses of the three segments of the lower extremity are computed from these
equations:

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- Momen of inertia tensor

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