ME 448: Mechanical Systems Analysis

Fall 2014; HW-2

Due: 26
th
Sep, Friday, 5 pm.

1. Consider the following measurements. Fit a skewed triangular model
ranging from 0.25 to 0.35, and a peak at 0.288. Using this model:
(a) Find the expected mean and expected standard deviation
(b) Find the probability that a sample will exceed 0.3.

# 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
x 0.28 0.29 0.30 0.32 0.28 0.29 0.29 0.30 0.26 0.28 0.27 0.28 0.30 0.29 0.29

2. An engineer proposes the following PDF for modeling a process:
2
( ) ; 1 1 f x ax bx c x = + +
a. Find the constants a,b & c such that the PDF goes to zero at the end
points, and the properties of PDF are satisfied
b. The CDF (cumulative distributive function) ( ) F y of a pdf ( ) f x is defined
as: ( ) ( )
y
F y f x dx

=


Find the CDF of the above function (with the correct constants)
c. Using the CDF, find the probability
( 0.5 0.5) P x

3. The capacity of a column is modeled by a normal distribution with a mean
of 300 kip and a coefficient of variation of 0.2
a. Find the probability of capacity less than zero (physically meaningless).
b. Calculate the probability of failure of column under a load of 100 kip
c. A load of 100 kip has been applied. Find the additional load that can be
applied if the probability of failure needs to be limited to 0.001

4. For Problem-3, suppose the load is normally distributed with a mean of
100 kip and a standard deviation of 10 kip, find the probability of failure.

5. In an examination, the following scores were obtained by 30 students: 99,
45, 60, 80, 95, 100, 95, 91, 85, 87, 77, 75, 61, 71, 85, 88, 83, 85, 79, 81, 82,
55, 63, 75, 82, 88, 77, 78, 41 and 70.
a. Draw the histogram using 6 bins.
b. Find the mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation
c. Using a normal distribution model, find the probability that a student
will receive a score of 75 or above.