Another week ha…
Another week has gone by and another PR has been opened. Added the kinetic energy and potential energy methods to the Particle and RigidBody classes. Also added functions to determine the same for a system of bodies. Implementing the kinetic energy method was fairly straightforward. A slightly different approach was used when it came to potential energies. It was decided that the best thing to do would be to let the user specify the potential energy scalar. So there is a set_potential_energy method and a read-only property called potential_energy.
On a brighter note, the two PRs that I had opened for the momenta functions and partial velocity functions have been merged. Chuffed about that.
As things stand now, we are set up beautifully to being the implementation of Lagrange’s method. The next week is primarily going to revolve around reading as much literature on the topic as possible because an attempt is going to be made to deal with non-holonomic systems too, unlike what was stated in my proposal i.e. only holonomic systems. I have personally never used Lagrange’s method on non-holonomic systems; instructors in the past have said it’s a messy affair and have stressed on the superiority of Kane’s method especially for this class of systems. I don’t doubt the superiority of Kane’s method but unfortunately, it’s not something that every dynamicist is aware of. So, it is definitely going to be a useful addition; a natural progression in the learning of dynamical methods starts at Newton’s method and is typically followed by Lagrange’s method and then to Kane’s method.
With the partial velocities helper functions and energy methods and functions, we are in a very good place in terms of implementing this method. Until next week then! (It’s 7am and I haven’t gotten any sleep last night. Over caffeinated. This post may not have made for pretty reading consequently)
