On plane-symmetric rigid-body motions (Q2186672)

Any 3d Euclidean rigid-body motion can be decomposed as a rotation around an axis plus a translation in the direction of the same axis. Therefore, every continuous rigid motion is instantaneously a screw motion and the collection of all instantaneous axes defines a ruled surface known either as the fixed axode if we see it in the fixed space (Eulerian viewpoint), or as the moving axode if we see it in the moving space (Lagrangian viewpoint). In this paper, the authors are interested in motions generated by reflecting a rigid body in successive planes of a 1-parameter family of planes, the so-called plane-symmetric motions (PSMs). After generalities about PSMs, such as the fact that their fixed axodes are developable ruled surfaces while the moving axodes are the reflection of the corresponding fixed axode in the initial plane of the motion, the authors focus their attention on those PSMs associated with a curve. Namely, they consider the PSM generated by the families of osculating, normal, and rectifying planes of a regular curve. The axodes and acceleration centers of these motions are computed and, in particular, it is shown that any tangent developable, i.e., the ruled surface generated by the tangent lines of a curve, is the fixed axode of some PSM. However, having a developable fixed axode is not enough to characterize a motion as a PSM. This is exemplified by the so-called Bishop (or rotation minimizing) motions whose fixed axodes are the same as the PSMs generated by the normal planes of the corresponding curve. (A Bishop motion is obtained by moving the rigid-body defined by the rotation minimizing moving frame along the curve.) Relations between PSMs of Bertrand, Mannheim, and Menninger partner curves are also obtained: the motion given by a certain combination of the rectifying PSM with a rectifying, a normal, or an osculating PSM of the mate curve produces a pure translation motion. Finally, the authors investigate motions generated by reflecting a rigid body in successive lines of a 1-parameter family of lines, the so-called line-symmetric motions. (Alternatively, these motions can be generated by reflecting in a pair of orthogonal planes that intersect along the line.) They then determine the twist velocities and fixed axodes of those line-symmetric motions given by the families of normal and binormal lines of a regular curve.