Find the centroid of a solid region R as in Fig.7-3.
consider the volume element T of the solid. The mass of this volume element is
where V is the density [mass per unit volume] and x,y,z are the dimensions of the volume element.
Then the centroid is given approximately by
Where the summation is taken over all volume elements of the solid.
Taking the limit as the number of volume elements becomes infinite in such a way that
we obtain for the centroid of the solid:
where the integration is to be performed over R, as indicated.
Writing
this can also be written in component form as