Engr 113

March 5, 2024
 Free Body Diagrams
• FBDs, FBD bubbles, and equations are all equivalent systems. Each
one is interchangeable with the others PROVIDING THAT the rules
for their construction are obeyed.
• Note: I mark assignments and exams assuming you will strictly follow
the rules for their mutual construction.
• Those of you who are getting the proper solutions are those who are
following the rules; those who treat the three systems as unrelated are
not using the redundant information and as a result frequently make
major mistakes that can be easily avoided.
 Context
• UBC once said that there were two things that students needed to learn
in their first year
• -Attention to detail
• -FBDs
Short Review of the FBD Process: Bubbles 1
• Visualize: (the role of the FBD bubble)
• -most problems (and real systems) have far more information than is
needed; a first step is to find a way to focus on what is important
• -(There are many ways this may be done – this is one of the things you
are being trained to do.)
• -To aid in the focus process, a bubble can be used to carve out a
“system”. A “system” exploits Newton’s laws: Second Law says sum
of forces ACTING on a system can cause a change, Third Law says
that interacting particles have no net effect on the system.
• Thus, forces acting THROUGH a bubble have an effect, interactions
within a bubble cancel out and are ignored.
Short Review of the FBD Process: Bubbles 2
• The bubble boundary is critical because ONLY forces cutting the
boundary are included, and ALL forces cutting the boundary must be
included
• Body forces (gravity, buoyancy, etc.) are interactions between atoms
on either side of the boundary, and so are included
• “Applied” forces are those that obviously cut the boundary – ropes,
springs, arrows, etc. They indicate an action-reaction pair where the
things experiencing the interacting forces are on different sides of the
boundary. (Same as above, but they “look” different.) Draw the bubble
to cut through the arrows on the image.
Short Review of the FBD Process: Bubbles 3
• Contact Forces are trickier. They are still atom-atom interactions
across the boundary, but they need to be treated carefully.
• Draw the bubble passing between the “system” and the outside at the
point(s) of contact.
• In general, there will be a 3D force and 3D couple present - but that is
too complicated in general. We deal with special cases.
• -The force is often divided into a force perpendicular to the surfaces
(normal force) and parallel (e.g. friction)
• -Couples may be included if the surface interaction is broad.
Short Review of the FBD Process: Bubbles 4
• -The surface-surface connections are usually described in terms of
possible movements between the surfaces, that describe which, if any,
of the 6 terms that may be present can be ignored.
• -examples are pins, hinges, bearings, ball-and-socket joints, etc.
• Draw the FBD bubble through the fastener.
• WARNING: Drawing the FBD bubble through the wall behind the
fastener, or inside what was supposed to be “the system” means the
FBD should be constructed with the indicated equivalent system, and
these may impose different (and more complicated) constraints.
Short Review of the FBD Process: Bubbles 5
• If you have trouble visualizing this: imagine you must wrap the “system”
in a plastic bag without holes to describe the contact forces.
• -at a flat surface this just means putting the bag on the surface and
dumping the “system” on top.
• -on things like “pins”, imagine a very stretchy bag and the pin slides
through the hole by stretching the bag. This creates a sharp division
between “in the system” and “outside the system”
• Cutting through a bulk material means using the system in Chapter7.
• The bag must be “closed” so you can’t exclude any surface contact
 Short Review of the FBD Process: FBD 1
• The bubble defines the boundary of the system, the FBD creation is a
process to systematically move the visual information of the bubble to
a system of labels.
• For each body force and applied force, there should be an arrow with a
unique name and a defined direction
• For each contact force, use the appropriate Equivalent System. The
system may be as simple as a single normal force, or as complicated as
a weld (with a three-component force and three-component couple).
• Use the sign conventions to avoid later problems!
 Short Review of the FBD Process: FBD 2
• The FBD will ideally show all relevant angles and positions/distances
to the problem. (I don’t enforce a rule to put on distances, but it is a
good idea.) There should be enough information to solve the problem
graphically.
• (The former Engr 151 course, Engineering Graphics, had a component
in which FBDs could be translated into scale-model graphs.)
• This is also an opportunity to make sure you have unique labels to use
in algebraic solutions.
• Warning: ALL the things the bubble cuts need to be represented!
Short Review of the FBD Process: Equations
1
• The FBD also is source material for all the things that will go into the
equations to solve.
• Often you will now do an inventory of forces and express each force
and moment according to the co-ordinate system you choose
• You may do some pre-processing of the data at this point.
• Here is where you decide which technique you will use to solve the
problem.
• Choose the “defining equations” appropriate to that technique.
Short Review of the FBD Process: Equations
2
• Go through your “defining equations”, and look at each entry in the
FBD or the inventory of forces and moments and see if they apply to
that component of the defining equations - if they belong, then
include them.
• In this way you create the equations appropriate to the problem.
• Critically important: If you ask yourself “What equations do I need to
solve this problem?” then you are doing it wrong! The equations you
need are specific to the problem and DO NOT EXIST until you create
them through the above process. Your job as an engineer is to create
the equations needed and THEN solve them.
 Important
• Your first questions when you see any problem
should be “What is happening here?”, or “Can I
visualize this?”, or something similar.
• You DO NOT want to “leap to the solution”
before you understand what you are dealing with.
 Another Topic: Linear Algebra
• Many students don’t seem to like Linear Algebra.
• The reality is that you will use Linear Algebra more often than
Calculus.
• Linear Algebra does not solve everything, but it is a tool that lends
itself to solving linked linear equations.
Simple Equations for a
Robotic Arm
• Can these equations be solved?
• Yes, if they are “consistent” (iff the right column is not a pivot
column) (If there are free variables, there is an opportunity for a
design decision)
• Vector manipulations, including changing co-ordinate systems can be
done by matrix multiplication.
• If you can diagonalize a matrix, you find the Eigen vectors and Eigen
values that are stable solutions.
• Multiple matrix multiplications can time-evolve a system.
• Linked equations (such as shear, bending) are solved by a single
matrix.
• Progressive actions (light through optical systems) can be done by
cascading matrix multiplications.