YDL IV

The Use of English Language

in Mechanical Engineering
Lecture - 1

1
Engineering Statics

2
Why Do We Need to Use
Engineering Statics?

3
Lets have an objective:
Automobile Stability
4
5
Mechanics: the physical science which describes or
predicts the conditions of rest or motion of bodies under
the action of forces.

6
In Statics, we assume the bodies to be perfectly rigid,
no deformation.

This is never true in the real world, everything deforms

a little when a load is applied.

These deformations are small and will not significantly

affect the conditions of equilibrium or motion, so we will
neglect the deformations.

7
Rigid body - a body is considered rigid when the
relative movement between its parts are negligible.

Basic concepts: space, time, mass, force

1. space - the geometric region occupied by bodies

whose positions are described by linear and
angular measurements relative to a coordinate
system.
2. time - the measure of the succession of events
3. mass - the measure oaf the inertia of a body, which
is its resistance to a change of motion. sometimes
called "quantity of matter“
4. force - the action of one body on another
8
Newton developed the fundamentals of mechanics. The
concepts above, space, time, and mass are absolute,
independent of each other in Newtonian Mechanics.

As an aside:

Hamiltonian Mechanics - impulse and momentum

Langrangian Mechanics – energy
Newtonian Mechanics - forces

9
10
11
 Scalars and Vectors

Scalar: A quantity like mass or temperature which only

has a magnitude
 Vector: A quantity like heat flux or force which has both
a magnitude and a direction (denoted by a bold faced
character, an underlined character, or a character with a
arrow on it)
 Vector Addition: Vector Addition follows the
parallelogram law described be the figure
                                                             

12
 Resolution of a Vector: A vector can be resolved along
different directions using the parallelogram rule. The figure
shows how one resolves vector c into components a and b
which are along the given
directions                                                                       
                                                          

13
 The math you need:

(1) For a right triangle:

14
(2) For a general triangle:

15
(3) A line intersecting parallel lines:

16
 Coordinates and Addition of Vectors

Unit vector: A vector of unit length

Components of a vector in orthogonal bases: Unit

vectors i and j are along the x and y directions

17
Addition of vectors using the components:

18
 Vectors in 3-D
Unit vector: A vector of unit length.

19
Base vectors for a rectangular coordinate system:
A set of three mutually orthogonal unit vectors

Right handed system: A coordinate system

represented by base vectors which follow the right-hand
rule.

Rectangular component of a Vector: The projections

of vector A along the x, y, and z directions are Ax, Ay,
and Az, respectively.

20
21
Magnitude of a Vector:

Direction Cosines: Cos(a), Cos(b), Cos(g)

22
Coordinates of points in space: The triplet (x,y,z)
describes the coordinates of a point.

The vector connecting two points: The vector

connecting point A to point B is given by      

23
The dot product: The dot product of vectors A and B is given by

Projection of a vector by using the dot product: The

projection of vector A along the unit vector u is given by

24
 Static Equilibrium for a Particle
A particle: An object with inertia (mass) but of negligible
dimensions

Equilibrium equations for a particle: A particle is in

equilibrium if the resultant of ALL forces acting on the
particle is equal to zero

25
Equilibrium equations in component form: In a rectangular
coordinate system the equilibrium equations can be
represented by three scalar equations:

Free-Body diagram: A diagram showing the particle under

consideration and all the forces acting on this particle. Each
force in this diagram must labeled.

26
String or cable: A mechanical device that can only transmit
a tensile force along itself.

27
Linear spring: A mechanical device which exerts a force
along its line of action and proportional to its extension.

28
Frictionless pulleys: For a frictionless pulley in static
equilibrium, the tension in the cable is the same on both
sides of the pulley.

29
 Moment of a force

The magnitude of the moment of a force:

MO: Magnitude of the moment of F around point O
d: Perpendicular distance from O to the line of action of F

30
Note: moving a force along its line of action does not
change its moment

Direction of the moment in 2-D: The direction of the moment

is given by the right hand rule: Counter Clockwise (CCW) is
out of the page, Clockwise (CW) is into the page.

31
Calculating the moment in 2-D using components:
Moments add together as vectors. Select a positive
direction (CCW or CW), then calculate each moment and
add them using the proper sign for each term.

For example:

32
The cross product:
Moment of Force F around point O: MO

33
Calculating the moment using rectangular components:

34
Resultant moment: Mro

35
Moment of a force about a specified axis a-a: Ma

36
Couple: The moment of a couple does not depend on the
point one takes the moment about. In other words, a
moment of a couple is the same about all points in space.

37
 Equivalent force-couple systems
The basic idea: Two force systems are equivalent if they
result in the same resultant force and the same resultant
moment.

38
Moving a force along its line of action: Moving a force
along its line of action results in a new force system which
is equivalent to the original force system.

39
Moving a force off its line of action: If a force is moved off
its line of action, a couple must be added to the force system
so that the new system generates the same moment as the
old system.

40
When can one reduce a force and couple system to
a single force?: All 2-D force systems can be reduced
to a single force. To find the line of action of the force,
the moment of the original system must be forced to be
the same as the system with the single force.

41
Equivalent force systems: The wrench
A wrench: A wrench is a force and couple system in
which the force and couple are parallel.

42
Equivalent force systems:
Distributed loads

43
Replacing a distributed load by single resultant load:

44
Note: Since the equation for d is the same as that for
determining the centroid of the area under the w(x) curve, it
follows that F must pass through the centroid of the area
under the curve w(x).

45
 Equilibrium of rigid bodies
Static equilibrium for a rigid body: A body (or any part of
it) which is currently stationary will remain stationary if the
resultant force and resultant moment are zero for all the
forces and couples applied on it.

46
47
 The analysis of trusses

A truss: A truss is a structure made of two force members

all pin connected to each other.

                                                 

48
The method of joints: This method uses the free-body-
diagram of joints in the structure to determine the forces in
each member. For example, in the above structure we have
5 joints each having a free body diagram as follows

49
The method of sections: This method uses free-body-
diagrams of sections of the truss to obtain unknown
forces.

50
Things to consider:

Zero force members: Some members in a truss cannot

carry load. These members are called zero force members.
Examples of zero force members are the colored members
(AB, BC, and DG) in the following truss.

51
A redundant joint: Sometimes a joint is redundant. For
example, in the following free-body-diagram the load is
directly transmitted from each member to the one opposite it
without any interaction.

By summing forces along the y-direction one will get F2=F4, and by
summing forces along the Y‑direction one will get F1=F3. 52
Redundant members: Sometimes a structure contains one
or more redundant members. These members must be
removed from the truss, otherwise one will have an
insufficient number of equations to solve for the unknown
member forces. Slender members are not very useful in
compression since they buckle and, as a result, lose their
load carrying capability. For example, in the following truss
one of the two members AC or BD is redundant. To solve the
problem, we remove member BD.

53