THE LINEAR MOMENTUM EQUATION

Newtons second law for a system of mass m

subjected to a net force
F = ma
F = mdV/dt
F = d/dt (mV)
Where mV is the linear momentum of the system
noting that both the density and velocity may
change from point within the system, Newton's
second law can be expressed more generally as

 where dm = dV is the mass of a differential

volume element dV, and V dV is its
momentum. Therefore, Newtons second law
can be stated as the sum of all external forces
acting on a system is equal to the time rate of
change of linear momentum of the system.
This statement is valid for a coordinate
system that is at rest or moves with a
constant velocity, called an inertial coordinate
system or inertial reference frame.

 The dot product of a second-order tensor and a

vector yields a second vector; this operation is
often called the contracted product or the
inner product of a tensor and a vector.
In our case, it turns out that the inner
product of the stress tensor ij and the unit
outward normal vector n of a differential surface
element yields a vector whose magnitude is the
force per unit area acting on the surface
element and whose direction is the direction of
the surface force itself. Mathematically we write