Eleventh Edition

VECTOR MECHANICS FOR ENGINEERS:

1
CHAPTER

STATICS
Ferdinand P. Beer
E. Russell Johnston, Jr.
David F. Mazurek Introduction

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Learning Outcomes
At the end of the topic/chapter the students would be able to:
• State and describe the fundamental concepts and principles of
mechanics (CO1-PO1)
• Apply the system of units and numerical accuracy (CO1-PO1)

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Contents
What is Mechanics?
What Can You Do with Statics
Knowledge?
Fundamental Concepts
Fundamental Principles
Systems of Units
Method of Problem Solution
Numerical Accuracy

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WHAT IS MECHANICS?

Study of what happens to a “thing” (the technical name is

“BODY”) when FORCES are applied to it.

Either the body or forces can be large or small.

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BRANCHES OF MECHANICS

Mechanics

Rigid Bodies Deformable Bodies Fluids

(Things that do not change shape) (Things that do change shape)

Statics Dynamics Incompressible Compressible

• Categories of Mechanics:
- Rigid bodies
- Statics – bodies at rest or at constant velocity
- Dynamics – accelerating bodies
- Deformable bodies
- Fluids – gas and/or liquid

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What Can You Do with Statics Knowledge?

Calculate the force in each Determine the forces that this

member of this structure (a prosthetic arm will need to
truss) in order to design it to withstand to make exercise
withstand the loads that it will possible for the wearer.
experience.

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What Can You Do with Statics Knowledge?
Design the joints and support of the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System
(SRMS) so that it can be used to pick up and support various payloads.

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Fundamental Concepts
• Space - associated with the notion of the position of a point P given in
terms of three coordinates measured from a reference point or origin.

• Time - definition of an event requires specification of the time and

position at which it occurred. Duration

• Mass - used to characterize and compare bodies, e.g., response to

earth’s gravitational attraction and resistance to changes in translational
motion.

• Force - represents the action of one body on another. A force is

characterized by its point of application, magnitude, and direction, i.e.,
a force is a vector quantity.

In Newtonian Mechanics, space, time, and mass are absolute concepts,

independent of each other. Force, however, is not independent of the
other three. The force acting on a body is related to the mass of the body
and the variation of its velocity with time.
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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Fundamental Concepts
Idealizations
Particle – has a mass but a size can be neglected. For example, the size of
the earth is insignificant compared to the size of its orbit, and therefore the
earth can be modeled as a particle when studying its orbital motion.

Rigid body – a combination of a large number of particles in which all the

particles remain at a fixed distance from one another, both before and after
applying the load.

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Fundamental Principles

1. The Parallelogram Law for the Addition of Forces.

2. The Principle of Transmissibility

3. Newton’s Three Fundamental laws.

• First, Second, and Third Law

4. Newton’s Law of Gravitation

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Parallelogram Law

• Parallelogram Law

• For addition for forces

• Two forces acting on particle
may be replaced by a single
force called resultant
• Obtained by drawing the
diagonal of the parallelogram
which has side equal to the
given forces.

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Principle of Transmissibility

• Principle of Transmissibility

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Principle of Transmissibility

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Fundamental Principles
• Newton’s First Law: If the resultant force on a particle is zero, the particle
will remain at rest or continue to move in a straight line.

• Newton’s Second Law: A particle will have an acceleration proportional to

a nonzero resultant applied force.
 
F  ma

• Newton’s Third Law: The forces of action and reaction between two
particles have the same magnitude and line of action with opposite sense.

• Newton’s Law of Gravitation: Two particles are attracted with equal

and opposite forces,
Mm GM
F G W  mg , g 
r2 R2
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Newton’s First Law

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Newton’s Second Law

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Newton’s Third Law

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Newton’s Law of Gravitation

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
UNITS OF MEASUREMENT

Four fundamental physical quantities (or dimensions).

• Length
• Mass
• Time
• Force

Newton’s 2nd Law relates them: F = m × a

We use this equation to develop systems of units.
Units are arbitrary names we give to the physical quantities.

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UNIT SYSTEMS

Force, mass, time and acceleration are related by Newton’s

2nd law. Three of these are assigned units (called base units)
and the fourth unit is derived. Which one is derived varies by
the system of units.

We will work with one unit system in statics:

• International System (SI)

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Table 1-1 in the textbook summarizes this unit system.

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF UNITS
(Section 1.3)

• No plurals (e.g., m = 5 kg, not kgs )

• Separate units with a • (e.g., meter second = m • s )

• Most symbols are in lowercase.

• Key exceptions are N, Pa, M and G.
• Exponential powers apply to units, e.g., cm • cm = cm2
• Compound prefixes should not be used.
• Table 1-2 in the textbook shows prefixes used in the SI
system

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Table 1–2 shows some of the prefixes used
in the SI system.

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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Systems of Units
• Kinetic Units: length, time, mass, • International System of Units (SI):
and force. The basic units are length, time, and
mass which are arbitrarily defined as the
meter (m), second (s), and kilogram
• Three of the kinetic units, referred to (kg). Force is the derived unit,
as basic units, may be defined F  ma
arbitrarily. The fourth unit, referred
 m
to as a derived unit, must have a  
1 N  1 kg 1 2 
definition compatible with Newton’s  s 
2nd Law, • U.S. Customary Units:
  The basic units are length, time, and
F  ma
force which are arbitrarily defined as the
foot (ft), second (s), and pound (lb).
Mass is the derived unit,
F
m
a
1lb
1slug 
1ft s
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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Method of Solving Problems: SMART Methodology
• Strategy: • Reflect and Think:
Includes given data, specification of - Test for errors in reasoning by
what is to be determined, and a figure verifying that the units of the
showing all quantities involved. computed results are correct,
Decide what learned concepts apply. - test for errors in computation by
• Modeling: substituting given data and computed
Create separate diagrams for each of results into previously unused
the bodies involved with a clear equations based on the six principles,
indication of all forces acting on - always apply experience and physical
each body. intuition to assess whether results seem
• Analysis: “reasonable”
The six fundamental principles are
applied to express the conditions of
rest or motion of each body. The
rules of algebra are applied to solve
the equations for the unknown
quantities.
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Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics
Numerical Accuracy
• The accuracy of a solution depends on 1) accuracy of the given
data, and 2) accuracy of the computations performed. The solution
cannot be more accurate than the less accurate of these two.

• The use of hand calculators and computers generally makes the

accuracy of the computations much greater than the accuracy of the
data. Hence, the solution accuracy is usually limited by the data
accuracy. That is, remember what you learned about significant
figures.
• As a general rule for engineering problems, the data are seldom
known with an accuracy greater than 0.2%. Therefore, it is usually
appropriate to record parameters beginning with “1” with four digits
and with three digits in all other cases, i.e., 40.2 lb and 15.58 lb.

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Question 1: There is a bag of 37.5 kg flour and

you need to distribute the flour evenly to 7
people. How much flour can each person get?

Question 2: What kind of device do you plan to

use to calculate the above matter? How accurate
your device??

Question 3: What is significant figure? Why is it

needed?

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Calculation rule on significant figures

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Why do we need to follow this rule?
What is significant figure and how to determine it?
• NOTE: This rule does NOT apply to exact quantities, such as counted numbers,
numbers in definition, theoretic values

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