Centroid, Centre of Mass and Centre of Gravity:

Very frequently it is needed to define a point such that the length of a wire, the area of a plate; the volume, the mass or the gravitational forces working on a body can be assumed to be concentrated at that point. Such points are frequently called as central points. A problem of the above nature involves some distributed quantity to be dealt with

Some commonly utilized central points are following:

1.      Centroid of the length of a curve.

2.      Centroid of the area of a surface.

3.      Centroid of the volume of a body.

4.      Mass centre of the mass of a body.

5.      Centre of gravity of the gravitational forces working on a body.

Let us explain the difference among the centre of gravity of a body and its centre of mass.