Kinetics vs Kinematics: Difference and Comparison

Key Takeaways

1. Kinematics is the branch of mechanics that focuses on the description and analysis of motion, specifically the geometric and temporal aspects such as position, velocity, acceleration, and time relationships.
2. On the other hand, kinetics is concerned with the forces that cause or influence motion. It involves studying the effects of forces on objects, their resulting accelerations, and the relationships between forces, mass, and acceleration.
3. While kinematics deals with the description of motion without considering the underlying forces, kinetics examines the forces that cause motion and enables the calculation of forces based on the known motion of objects.

What is Kinetics?

Kinetics is the study of motion. It deals with the forces that cause movement. It is a department of classical mechanics. In the most straightforward words, classical mechanics is a branch of physics. It focuses on the motion of objects.

You will discover the connection between forces, mass, and motion in kinetics. Forces are the reason for changes in the action of objects. Kinetics will tell you how this happens.

The basic concepts of kinetics incorporate force, mass, and acceleration. These are related to Newton’s Second Law of Motion. While studying kinetics, you will analyse the forces that act on an object. You will also determine the results of acceleration and motion. The study will also help you predict the object’s future behaviour based on those forces.

A wide range of fields employs kinetics in practical applications. Design, engineering, biomechanics, and materials science are only a few industry names. Kinetics is used to design and analyse structures, machines, and vehicles.

It will also help to comprehend the mechanics of human movement. In addition, chemistry also uses kinetics to study the rates of chemical reactions, which involve the motion and interaction of particles.

What is Kinematics?

Kinematics is a branch of mechanics. It consolidates the geometry and time-based properties of motion. The fundamental concepts of kinematics comprise position, velocity, and acceleration. These are used to describe the motion of an object.

By position, one means the location of an object in space at a particular time. Conversely, velocity means the rate of change of an object’s position over time. At the same time, acceleration is the rate of change of an object’s velocity.

Kinematics is indispensable in physics, science, engineering, and technology. Robotics, and now animation, use kinematics widely. It assists in figuring out the motion of particles in physics. In animation and video game design, kinematics is manipulated to produce realistic motion of present objects and characters and objects.

Difference Between Kinetics and Kinematics

1. Kinetics is the study of motion that does not consider forces, while kinematics is the study of motion that includes forces.
2. Kinetics gives ideas about motion without concern for its causes, but kinematics illustrates motion in terms of its causes and effects.
3. Kinetics is concerned with motion path and displacement, whereas kinematics is concerned with the impact of forces on motion along with motion path and removal.
4. Kinetics has scalar quantities; on the contrary, kinematics has vector quantities.
5. Kinetics work with motion without external forces, but kinematics works with motion under the influence of external forces.
6. Robotics, animation, and sports analysis can be seen in kinetics, while biomechanics, engineering, design and many other fields use kinematics.

Comparison Between Kinetics and Kinematics

Parameter of Comparison	Kinetics	Kinematics
Definition	It is the study of motion that does not consider forces.	It is the study of motion that includes forces.
Purpose	It depicts motion connected with position, velocity, and acceleration.	It clarifies the connection of motion with forces and mass.
Priority	It prioritises geometry and time-based properties of motion.	It considers the forces that give birth to motion.
Applications	We can see its usage in robotics, animation, sports analysis etc.        Applications:	This is very useful in biomechanics, engineering, design etc.
Use of quantities	It implicates scalar quantities like distance and speed.	It has vector quantities like force and momentum.
Influence of external forces	It does not influence external forces because it works in the absence of external forces.	It is affected by external forces.

References

1. https://bmcsportsscimedrehabil.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2052-1847-5-27
2. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0363546504273047

Last Updated : 28 July, 2023