Centroid of a Line

Curved Line



Straight Line: The centroid of a straight line is located at its midpoint. However, for a shape made up of multiple straight-line segments, its centroidal location can be found as

figure
equation (1)

where xi yi zi represent the centroidal coordinates of the ith line segment. In applying Eq. (1), we are free to choose any reference coordinate system that simplifies the calculation of the centroid. Using the moment-of-a-force analogy, the numerator in Eq. (1) represents the sum of "moments" produced by the individual line segments, and the denominator represents the total line length.

Example 1

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Curved Line