In the world of mass properties, indeed in the world at large, the mass property that gets all the “press” is weight, or more correctly, mass. The unsung “hero” of mass properties, with at least as much influence as mass in the behavior of an object in a force field, is the Center of Gravity.
The Center of Gravity exerts its influence in myriad ways. This paper presents a compendium of manifestations of the effect the CG has on an object’s behavior, some of which are surprising even to those who have studied the growing field of mass properties engineering. As a result, the authors put forth the proposition that the Center of Gravity should be raised from secondary importance to primary in the mass properties hierarchy.