Engineering Mechanics

Two things that are basic to understanding the physical world and universe in which we
live are
a. the motions of bodies and
b. their mechanical interactions
Engineering mechanics provides the basic principles by which these motions and
interactions are described, related, and predicted.

Engineering is the application of the mathematical and physical sciences (physics,

chemistry, and biology) to the design and manufacture of items that benefit humanity.
Engineering essentially means to make something happen (something that we want) in
the most efficient possible way
Design is the key concept that distinguishes engineers from scientists.
“The Scientist describes what is.
The Engineer creates what never was.”
By Theodore von Karman – Hungarian – American Physicist and Aeronautical Engineer.
According to the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET),
Engineering design is the process of devising a system, component, or process to
meet desired needs.
Mechanics can be defined as that science which describes and predicts the conditions
of rest or motion of bodies or fluids under the action of forces.
Engineering Mechanics is the branch of engineering that applies the principles of
mechanics to mechanical design (i.e., any design that must take into account the effect
of forces)
In the first part of this introductory mechanics, we shall be considering bodies at rest
in an inertial (or Newtonian reference frame) a body in this situation is said to be in
equilibrium. Statics is the study of the equilibrium interactions (forces) of a body with
its surroundings. In another part, called dynamics, we explore the relation between
motions and forces, especially in circumstances in which the body may be idealized as
rigid.
In this course of mechanics, bodies are assumed to be perfectly rigid. Actual structures
and machines, however, are never absolutely rigid and deform under the loads to which
they are subjected. But these deformations are usually small and do not appreciably
affect the conditions of equilibrium or motion of the structure under consideration
The Primitives
There are several concepts that are primitives in the study of mechanics.
Rigid body. A rigid body is a combination of a large number of particles occupying
fixed positions with respect to each other. A body is considered rigid when the change
in distance between any two of its points is negligible for the purpose at hand.
Space is the geometric region occupied by bodies whose positions are described by
linear and angular measurements relative to a coordinate system. The coordinate axes
used in locating the points will be locked into a reference frame, which is itself no
more or less than a rigid body (one for which the distance between any two points is
constant).
Time. Time will be measured in the usual way. It is, of course, the measure used to
identify the chronology of events. Time will not really enter the picture in statics; it
becomes important when the bodies are no longer at rest, but are instead moving in the
reference frame. To define an event, it is not sufficient to indicate its position in space.
The time of the event should also be given.
Mass. The resistance of a body to motion (inertia ) is measured by its mass and by the
distribution of that mass. Mass can also be thought of as the quantity of matter in a
body. Mass is a factor in the gravitational attraction of one body to another (i.e., The
mass of a body affects the gravitational attraction force between it and other bodies).
Two bodies of the same mass, for example, will be attracted by the earth in the same
manner; they will also offer the same resistance to a change in translational motion.
Mass per unit volume, called density, is a fundamental material property.
Force. Force is the action of one body upon another, most easily visualized as a push
or pull. Force acting on a body tends to accelerate it in the direction of the force. It
can be exerted by actual contact or at a distance, as in the case of gravitational
forces and magnetic forces. A force is characterized by its point of application, its
magnitude, and its direction; a force is represented by a vector.
Particle. A particle is a body of negligible dimensions. In the mathematical sense, a
particle is a body whose dimensions are considered to be near zero so that we may
analyze it as a mass concentrated at a point. We often choose a particle as a
differential element of a body. We may treat a body as a particle when its dimensions
are irrelevant to the description of its position or the action of forces applied to it.
In Newtonian mechanics, space, time, and mass are absolute concepts, independent of
each other. (This is not true in relativistic mechanics, where the time of an event
depends upon its position, and where the mass of a body varies with its velocity.) On
the other hand, the concept of force is not independent of the other three.
The study of elementary mechanics rests on six fundamental principles based on
experimental evidence.
Newton’s Three Fundamental Laws.
When Isaac Newton first set down the basic laws or principles upon which mechanics
has come to be based, he wrote them for a particle. This is a piece of material
sufficiently small that we need not distinguish its material points as to locations (or
velocities or accelerations).
Newton published a treatise called The Principia in 1687, in which certain principles
governing the motion of a particle were developed. These have come to be known as
Newton's Laws of Motion, and are commonly expressed today as follows:
FIRST LAW. If a particle is at rest (or moving with constant velocity in a straight
line), it will remain at rest (or continue to move with constant velocity in a straight
line) unless acted upon by a force (external or Unbalanced force).
i.e., If the resultant force acting on a particle is zero, the particle will remain at rest
(if originally at rest) or will move with constant speed in a straight line (if originally in
motion)
SECOND LAW. If a force acts on a particle, it will be accelerated in the direction of
the force, with an acceleration magnitude proportional to that of the force.
i.e., If the resultant force acting on a particle is not zero, the particle will have an
acceleration proportional to the magnitude of the resultant and in the direction of this
resultant force.
Newton’s first law contains the principle of the equilibrium of forces, which is the main
topic of concern in statics. This law is actually a consequence of the second law, since
there is no acceleration when the force is zero, and the particle either is at rest or is
moving with a uniform velocity. The first law adds nothing new to the description of
motion but is included here because it was part of Newton’s classical statements.
THIRD LAW. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction; that is, the
forces of interaction between two particles are equal in magnitude and oppositely
directed along the same line of action.
The third law is basic to our understanding of force. It states that forces always occur
in pairs of equal and opposite forces. Thus, the downward force exerted on the desk by
the pencil is accompanied by an upward force of equal magnitude exerted on the pencil
by the desk. This principle holds for all forces, variable or constant, regardless of their
source, and holds at every instant of time during which the forces are applied.
We must recognize that the laws will not apply
a. When velocities approach the speed of light and
b. When relativistic effects become important
Neither will Newton's Laws apply at a spatial scale appropriate to individual atoms. It
is also important to understand that what we ate really doing is hypothesizing the
existence of certain special frames of reference in which the laws are valid. These
frames are called Newtonian, or inertial. This poses a chicken and egg problem where
one tries to reason, which comes first, the inertial frame or the three laws. It is true
that the laws hold only in inertial frames, but also that inertial frames are those in
which the laws hold, so that neither is of any value without the other.
Inertial reference frames When applying Newton’s second law, attention must be
paid to the coordinate system in which the accelerations are measured. An inertial
reference frame (also known as a Newtonian or Galilean reference frame) is defined to
be any rigid coordinate system in which Newton’s laws of particle motion relative to
that frame are valid with an acceptable degree of accuracy. In most design
applications used on the surface of the earth, an inertial frame can be approximated
with sufficient accuracy by attaching the coordinate system to the earth. In the study
of earth satellites, a coordinate system attached to the sun usually suffices. For inter
planetary travel, it is necessary to use coordinate systems attached to the so-called
fixed stars.
It can be shown that any frame that is translating with constant velocity relative to
an inertial frame is itself an inertial frame. It is a common practice to omit the word
inertial when referring to frames for which Newton’s laws obviously apply.
An important extension of Newton's Laws was made in the' 18th century by the Swiss
mathematician Leonhard Euler. The extension was the postulation of two vector laws of
motion for the finite sized body. These laws (Euler's Laws), again valid only in
inertial frames, are expressible as:
I. The resultant of the external forces on a body is at all times equal to the time
derivative of its momentum.
II. The resultant moment of these external forces about a fixed point is equal to
the time derivative of the body's moment of momentum about that point.
Euler's Laws allow us to study the motions (or the special case in which the motions
vanish) of bodies, whether or not they are particles.
The first law yields the motion of the mass center, and the second leads to the
orientational, or rotational, motion of a rigid body. It can be shown that an "action
reaction" principle (equivalent to Newton's Third law) follows from these two laws of
Euler.
Newton’s Law of Gravitation. In statics as well as dynamics we often need to
compute the weight of a body, which is the gravitational force acting on it. This
computation depends on the law of gravitation.
Consider two particles of mass m1 and m2 that
are separated by a distance r, as shown in
figure. The law of gravitation states that the
two particles are attracted to each other by
forces of magnitude F that act along the line
connecting the particles, where
𝐺𝑚! 𝑚!
𝐹=
𝑟!
Where, G is a universal constant known as the constant of gravitation
The mutual forces F obey the law of action and reaction, since they are equal and
opposite and are directed along the line joining the centers of the particles.
-
By experiment the gravitational constant is found to be G is equal to 6.673 ×10
11
m3/(kg. s2) or 3.44×10−8 ft4/(lb · s4)
Although this law is valid for particles, Newton showed that it is also applicable to
spherical bodies, provided that their masses are distributed uniformly.
A particular case of great importance is that of the attraction of the earth on a
particle located on its surface. The force F exerted by the earth on the particle is
then defined as the weight W of the particle. Taking me equal to the mass of the
earth, mp equal to the mass of the particle, and re equal to the radius of the earth,
and introducing the constant.
𝑚! 𝑚!
𝑊=𝐺
𝑟!!
The mass and radius of the earth are me = 5.9742 × 1024 kg and re = 6378 km
respectively
𝐺𝑚!
𝑊= × 𝑚!
𝑟!!
!!
Let 𝑔 = ! ! ! 𝑊 = 𝑔 × 𝑚!
!
-11
W = ((6.673 ×10 × 5.9742 × 1024)/(6378)2) × 𝑚!
W = 9.81 × 𝑚!
The symbol g is called the strength of the gravitational field or the gravitational
acceleration, since this is the free-fall acceleration of a body near the surface of the
earth. Although g varies slightly from place to place on the earth, we shall, unless
otherwise noted, use the nominal values of 32.2lb/slug (or ft/sec2) and 9.81 N/kg or
m/s2. The force, mg that the earth exerts on the body is called the weight of the
body.
Gravitational Attraction of the Earth Gravitational forces exists between every
pair of bodies. On the surface of the earth the only gravitational force of appreciable
magnitude is the force due to the attraction of the earth. For example, each of two
iron spheres 100 mm in diameter is attracted to the earth with a gravitational force of
37.1 N, which is its weight. On the other hand, the force of mutual attraction between
the spheres if they are just touching is 0.0000000951 N. This force is clearly negligible
compared with the earth’s attraction of 37.1 N. Consequently the gravitational
attraction of the earth is the only gravitational force we need to consider for most
engineering applications on the earth’s surface.
From Newton’s Second Law
Force = Mass x Acceleration
F=mxa
In SI, the force unit is the newton (N), and it is defined as the force required to
accelerate a mass of 1 kg at a rate of 1 m/s2. In the English system, the force unit is
the pound-force (lbf) and is defined as the force required to accelerate a mass of
32.174 lbm (1 slug) at a rate of 1 ft/s2. Another force unit in common use in many
European countries is the kilogram-force (kgf), which is the weight of 1 kg mass at sea
level (1 kgf = 9.807 N).
The term weight is often incorrectly used to express mass, particularly by the
“weight watchers.” Unlike mass, weight W is a force. It is the gravitational force
applied to a body, and its magnitude is determined from Newton’s second law.
W = m x g (N)
where m is the mass of the body, and g is the local gravitational acceleration (g is
9.807 m/s2 or 32.174 ft/s2 at sea level and 45° latitude). An ordinary bathroom scale
measures the gravitational force acting on a body.
The mass of a body remains the same regardless of its location in the universe. Its
weight, however, changes with a change in gravitational acceleration. A body weighs
less on top of a mountain since g decreases with altitude. On the surface of the moon,
an astronaut weighs about one-sixth of what she or he normally weighs on earth
It should be noted that the gravity force acting on a mass is due to the attraction
between the masses, and thus it is proportional to the magnitudes of the masses and
inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Therefore, the
gravitational acceleration g at a location depends on the local density of the earth’s
crust, the distance to the center of the earth, and to a lesser extent, the positions of
the moon and the sun.
The value of g varies with location from 9.8295 m/s2 at 4500 m below sea level to
7.3218 m/s2 at 100,000 m above sea level. However, at altitudes up to 30,000 m, the
variation of g from the sea-level value of 9.807 m/s2 is less than 1 percent. Therefore,
for most practical purposes, the gravitational acceleration can be assumed to be
constant at 9.81 m/s2. It is interesting to note that at locations below sea level, the
value of g increases with distance from the sea level, reaches a maximum at about
4500 m, and then starts decreasing.
The primary cause of confusion between mass and weight is that mass is usually
measured indirectly by measuring the gravity force it exerts. This approach also
assumes that the forces exerted by other effects such as air buoyancy and fluid
motion are negligible. This is like measuring the distance to a star by measuring its red
shift, or measuring the altitude of an air- plane by measuring barometric pressure.
Both of these are also indirect measurements. The correct direct way of measuring
mass is to compare it to a known mass.
Force on a particle and lines of action
Force is the term assigned to mechanical interaction between bodies. A force is a
mechanical action exerted by one physical body on another. Very simply, but also very
specifically, it is what we perceive as a "push" or a "pull." A force tends to move a
body in the direction of its action. The action of a force is characterized by its
magnitude, by the direction of its action, and by its point of application. In dynamics we
will see that a force is defined as an action which tends to cause acceleration of a
body.
The use of the word “particle” does not imply that our study will be limited to that of
small corpuscles. What it means is that the size and shape of the bodies under
consideration will not significantly affect the solution of the problems treated and that
all the forces acting on a given body will be assumed to be applied at the same point.
Since such an assumption is verified in many practical applications.
A force can affect both the motion and the deformation of the body on which it acts.
Forces may arise from direct contact between bodies i.e., interaction can occur when
there is direct contact between the bodies, such as a person pushing on a wall. It can
occur through a distance when the bodies are physically separated. Examples include
gravitational, electrical, and magnetic forces. Contact forces (Surface forces) are
distributed over a surface area of the body, whereas forces acting at a distance (Body
 forces) are distributed over the volume of the body.
Sometimes the area over which a contact force is
applied is so small that it may be approximated by a
point, in which case the force is said to be
concentrated at the point of contact. The contact
point is also called the point of application of the
force. The line of action of a concentrated force is
the line that passes through the point of application
and is parallel to the force or the line of action of
a force is very simply the line in space that passes
through the point of application and has the same
direction as the force.
A force is a vector quantity, because its effect depends on the direction as well as on
the magnitude of the action. Perhaps this seems almost self-evident because we
imagine pushes and pulls to have the qualities of magnitude and direction that are
characteristic of vectors.
Scalars and Vectors
Many physical quantities in engineering mechanics are measured using either scalars or
vectors.
Scalar A scalar is any positive or negative physical quantity (plain number) that can
be completely specified by its magnitude.
Examples of scalar quantities include temperature, energy, volume, density, speed,
length, mass, and time.
Vector A vector is any physical quantity that requires both a magnitude and a
direction for its complete description. Examples of vectors encountered in statics are
force, position, displacement, velocity, acceleration, moment and momentum.

A vector is shown graphically by an arrow. The

length of the arrow represents the magnitude of
the vector, and the angle θ between the vector
and a fixed axis defines the direction of its line of
action. The head or tip of the arrow indicates the
sense of direction of the vector

Speed is a scalar. It is the magnitude of velocity, which is a vector. Thus velocity is

specified by a direction as well as a speed.
We see that a vector does not possess a unique line of action, because moving a vector
to a parallel line of action changes neither its magnitude nor its direction. In some
engineering applications, the definition of a vector is more restrictive to include a line
of action or even a point of application. Vectors representing physical quantities can be
classified as free, sliding, or fixed.
Free Vector: Equivalent vectors have the same magnitude and direction or A free
vector is one whose action is not confined to or associated with a unique line in space.
For example, if a body moves without rotation, then the movement or displacement of
any point in the body may be taken as a vector. This vector describes equally well the
direction and magnitude of the displacement of every point in the body. Thus, we may
represent the displacement of such a body by a free vector.
Sliding Vector: Equivalent vectors have the same magnitude, direction, and line of
action or A sliding vector has a unique line of action in space but not a unique point of
application. Forces acting on a rigid body are represented by vectors that can be
moved, or slid, along their lines of action they are known as sliding vectors. For
example, when an external force acts on a rigid body, the force can be applied at any
point along its line of action without changing its effect on the body as a whole (This
is the principle of transmissibility), and thus it is a sliding vector.
The moment M obeys all the rules of vector combination and may be considered a
sliding vector with a line of action coinciding with the moment axis. The moment of a
couple is a free vector, whereas the moment of a force about a point (which is also the
moment about a defined axis through the point) is a sliding vector whose direction is
along the axis through the point. The net effect of a couple is to produce a moment M.
Since this moment is independent of the point about which it is computed, M is a free
vector and thus remains unchanged as it is moved from point to point. Also, two couples
are equivalent (that is, they have the same effect on a given rigid body) if they
produce the same moment.
Fixed Vector: Equivalent vectors have the same magnitude, direction, and point of
application or A fixed vector is one for which a unique point of application is specified
or A vector used to represent a force acting on a given particle has a well-defined
point of application. Force is a fixed vector, because one of its characteristics (in
addition to its magnitude and direction) is its point of application. The action of a force
on a deformable or non-rigid body must be specified by a fixed vector at the point
of application of the force. In this instance the forces and deformations within the
body depend on the point of application of the force, as well as on its magnitude and
line of action.
The magnitude of a force is characterized by a certain number of units. The direction
of a force is defined by the line of action and the sense of the force. The line of action
is the infinite straight line along which the force acts; it is characterized by the angle
it forms with some fixed axis

Two vectors which have the same magnitude and the same direction are said to be
equal, whether or not they also have the same point of application, equal vectors may
be denoted by the same letter.
Scalar-Vector Multiplication: The multiplication of a scalar m and a vector A,
written as mA or as A m, is defined as follows.
1. If m is positive, mA is the vector of magnitude mA that has the same direction
as A.
2. If m is negative, mA is the vector of magnitude |m|A that is oppositely directed
to A.
3. If m = 0, mA (called the null or zero vector) is a vector of zero magnitude and
arbitrary direction.
For m = − 1, we see that (−1)A is the vector that has the same magnitude as A but is
oppositely directed to A. The vector (−1)A, usually written as −A, is called the negative
of A.
The negative vector of a given vector A is defined as a vector having the same
magnitude as A and a direction opposite to that of P the negative of the vector P is
denoted by -A. The vectors A and -A are commonly referred to as equal and opposite
vectors. Clearly, we have
A + -A = 0
Unit Vectors: A unit vector is a dimensionless vector with magnitude 1. Therefore, if λ
represents a unit vector (|λ| = 1) with the same direction as A, we can write
A = Aλ
This representation of a vector often is useful because it separates the magnitude A
and the direction λ of the vector.
ADDITION OF VECTORS
The addition of two vectors A and B is defined to be
the vector C that results from the geometric
construction shown in Figure. Observe that C is the
diagonal of the parallelogram formed by A and B.
A +B =C
is called the parallelogram law for addition. The vectors
A and B are referred to as components of C, and C is
called the resultant of A and B. The process of
replacing a resultant with its components is called
resolution. For example, C in Figure is resolved into its
components A and B.
An equivalent statement of the parallelogram law is
the triangle law. Here the tail of B is placed at the tip
of A, and C is the vector that completes the triangle,
drawn from the tail of A to the tip of B. The result is
identical if the tail of A is placed at the tip of B and C
is drawn from the tail of B to the tip of A.
A +B =C
is called the triangle law for addition. The vectors A and B are referred to as
components of C, and C is called the resultant of A and B
It appears from the above that vectors (forces) do not obey the rules of addition
defined in ordinary arithmetic or algebra.
For example, two forces acting at a right angle to each other, one of 4lb and the other
of 3lb, add up to a force of 5lb, not to a force of 7lb .
Experiments in mechanics consistently confirm that the effect of two forces
simultaneously applied (and having a common point of application) is the same as the
effect that arises from a single force related to the first two by the parallelogram
law. This law states that two vectors A and B, treated as free vectors may be
replaced by their equivalent vector C, which is the diagonal of the parallelogram
formed by A and B as its two sides.
The idea of resultant in Mechanics is to replace two or more forces acting on a given
particle by a single force having the same effect as the original forces. This single
equivalent force is the resultant of the original forces acting on the particle. Forces
do conform to the parallelogram law of addition.
However, some things in the physical world have magnitude and direction but can't be
represented by vectors because they don't conform to the parallelogram law of
addition. While these may be represented by arrows, they cannot be considered as
vectors.
A group of such expressions is the finite rotations of a rigid body. Place a closed book
on a table in front of you, so that it lies in the usual fashion, with its front cover up
and its binding to the left. Now rotate it through 180° about an axis parallel to the
binding this rotation may be represented by an arrow of length equal to 180 units and
oriented as shown.

Picking up the book as it lies in its new position, rotate it now through 180° about a
horizontal axis perpendicular to the binding this second rotation may be represented by
an arrow 180 units long and oriented as shown. But the book could have been placed in
this final position through a single 180° rotation about a vertical axis.
We conclude that the sum of the two 180° rotations represented by arrows directed
respectively along the z and x axes is a 180° rotation represented by an arrow directed
along the y axis. Clearly, the finite rotations of a rigid body do not obey the
parallelogram law of addition; therefore, they cannot be represented by vectors.
We conclude that the sum of the two 180° rotations represented by arrows directed
respectively along the z and x axes is a 180° rotation represented by an arrow directed
along the y axis. Clearly, the finite rotations of a rigid body do not obey the
parallelogram law of addition therefore, they cannot be represented by vectors.
Because of the geometric nature of the parallelogram law and the triangle law, vector
addition can be accomplished graphically. A second technique is to determine the
relationships between the various magnitudes and angles analytically by applying the laws of
sines and cosines to a sketch of the parallelogram (or the triangle).

Later the relations which exist among the various forces acting on a particle in a state
of equilibrium will be derived and used to determine some of the forces acting on the
particle.