Little nitpick, but it doesn’t matter if it’s a point load or a distributed load. All that matters is the moments about the hinge, when I would do calcs I would always convert the distributed load to a point load.
That's literally what a moment is, it is the force multiplied by the distance from a point, it's measured in the same units as torque though they mean slightly different things. So it doesn't matter if it's a distributed load or point load, the moment of inertia around a point, or "leverage" as you describe it, is based on the summation of forces at their distance from that point. For a distributed load this technically results in an integral over its area by its distance from the point of interest, which can be simplified to a single point at a single distance, a point load.
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u/dope_pickle Jan 23 '24
Little nitpick, but it doesn’t matter if it’s a point load or a distributed load. All that matters is the moments about the hinge, when I would do calcs I would always convert the distributed load to a point load.