Inertia tensor of triangle in arbitrary coordinate system

Hi,


I'm trying to find an (approximate) solution for finding the inertia tensor of a triangle in an arbitrary coordinate system.

How to do this?


Consider a rigid body constructed of a "thin" surface of some defined thickness and approximated by a lot of triangles - how do I find the inertia tensor for this body?

Well, the general idea that I've had is to find the inertia tensor of each triangle with respect to a coordinate system in the center of mass of the body. Then add all these results and the total inertia tensor will be given.


Why do I actually wanna do all this.
Well, in general this wouldn't be necessary, if the principal axes of the body was to be found in another way! So if you can think of another way of finding the principal axes of some body constructed of a surface (triangles), then feel free to propose this method!


Thanks
/ Preben
.

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