Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

CHAPTER 1 Force Vectors

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

1.1 General Principles

Mechanics is a branch of the physical sciences that is concerned with the state of rest or
motion of bodies that are subjected to the action of forces.

Mechanics

Fluid Deformable-body Rigid body

mechanics mechanics mechanics

Rigid-body mechanics will be studied since it is a basic requirement for the study of the
mechanics of deformable bodies and the mechanics of fluids. Furthermore, rigid-body
mechanics is essential for the design and analysis of many types of structural members,
mechanical components, or electrical devices encountered in engineering.

Rigid body mechanics

Dynamics Statics

Dynamics is concerned Statics deals with the equilibrium of bodies

with the accelerated motion of bodies those that are either at rest or move with a
constant velocity

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

Units of measurement

Units of measurement

U.S. Customary SI Units

U.S. Customary system The International System of units

- length is measured in feet (ft) - length is measured in meters (m)
- time in seconds (s) - time in seconds (s)
- force in pounds (lb) - force in newton (N)
- mass in slug - mass in kilograms (kg)
- lb = slug . ft/s2 - N = kg . m/s2
- gravity (g)= 32.2 ft/s2 - gravity (g)= 9.81 m/s2

Note// In our study we will use only the SI units

1 𝑡𝑜𝑛 = 1000 𝑘𝑔 1 𝑚𝑖𝑛 = 60 𝑠

1 𝑘𝑔 = 1000 𝑔 1ℎ = 60𝑚𝑖𝑛 = 3600 𝑠
1 𝑘𝑁 = 1000 𝑁 1 𝑑𝑎𝑦 = 24 ℎ
1 𝑚 = 100𝑐𝑚 = 1000 𝑚𝑚 1 𝑑𝑎𝑦 = 86400 𝑠
1 𝑐𝑚 = 10 𝑚𝑚
1𝑘𝑚 = 1000 𝑚

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

1.2 Scalar and Vectors

. Quantities

Vectors Scalar
Quantities Quantities

A vector is any physical quantity that A scalar is any positive or negative

requires both a magnitude and a physical quantity that can be completely
direction for its complete description. specified by its magnitude.

Examples: force, position, and moment Examples: length, mass, and time

Direction
of vector

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 the
vector. The head or tip of the arrow indicates the sense of direction of the vector.

1.3 Vector Operations

Multiplication and Division of a Vector by a Scalar.

If a vector is multiplied by a positive scalar, its magnitude is increased by that amount.
Multiplying by a negative scalar will also change the directional sense of the vector.

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

Vector Addition.
When adding two vectors together it is important to account for both their magnitudes and
their directions.

Parallelogram law
The two component vectors A and B are added to form a resultant vector R = A + B

Triangle rule
Triangle rule, which is a special case of the parallelogram law, whereby vector B is added to
vector A in a “head-to-tail” fashion

Special case
As a special case, if the two vectors A and B are collinear, i.e., both have the same line of
action, the parallelogram law reduces to an algebraic or scalar addition R = A + B

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

Vector Subtraction.
The resultant of the difference between two vectors A and B of the same type may be expressed
as
R’ = A - B = A + (-B)

Subtraction is defined as a special case of addition, so the rules of vector addition also apply
to vector subtraction.

1.4 Vector Addition of Forces

Finding a Resultant Force.

Parallelogram law Tringle rule

Finding the Components of a Force.

Parallelogram law Tringle rule

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

Addition of Several Forces.

If more than two forces are to be added, successive applications of the parallelogram law can
be carried out in order to obtain the resultant force. For example, if three forces F1, F2, F3 act
at a point O, the resultant of any two of the forces is found, say, F1+ F2—and then this resultant
is added to the third force, yielding the resultant of all three forces; i.e.,

𝐅𝐑 = (𝐅𝟏 + 𝐅𝟐 ) + 𝐅𝟑

Cosine Law and Sine Law

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

Geometry and Trigonometry Review

1) The angles u in Fig. A–1 are equal between the transverse and two parallel lines.

2) For a line and its normal, the angles u in Fig. A–2 are equal.

3) The sides of a similar triangle can be obtained by proportion as in Fig. A–3,

𝑎 𝑏 𝑐
= =
𝐴 𝐵 𝐶

4) For the right triangle in Fig. A–4, the Pythagorean theorem is

ℎ = √(𝑜)2 + (𝑎)2

The trigonometric functions are

𝑜
sin 𝜃 =
ℎ
𝑎
cos 𝜃 =
ℎ
𝑜
tan 𝜃 =
𝑎

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

EXAMPLE 1.2
Figure (a)

(a) (b) (c)

Figure b.

Figure c.

Figure b

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

EXAMPLE 1.3
N Figure (a)

N N N

N
Figure b.
N

Figure (c).

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EXAMPLE 1.4
Figure a

N N

Figure b,
Figure c.

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

EXAMPLE 1.5
Figure a

Figure b.

Figure c.

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

Fundamental Problems

F1-1. F1-4. N

Ans: 𝑭𝑹 = 𝟔. 𝟖𝟎 𝒌𝑵, 𝜽 = 𝟏𝟎𝟑𝒐 Ans: 𝑭𝒖 = 𝟐𝟐 𝑵, 𝑭𝒗 = 𝟏𝟓. 𝟓 𝑵

F1-2. F1-5. N

Ans: 𝑭𝑹 = 𝟔𝟔𝟔 𝑵 Ans: 𝑭𝑨𝑩 = 𝟖𝟔𝟗 𝑵, 𝑭𝑨𝑪 = 𝟔𝟑𝟔 𝑵

F1-3. F1-6.

Ans: 𝑭𝑹 = 𝟕𝟐𝟏 𝑵, 𝝓 = 𝟒𝟑. 𝟗𝒐 Ans: 𝑭 = 𝟑. 𝟏𝟏 𝒌𝑵, 𝑭𝒗 = 𝟒. 𝟑𝟗 𝒌𝑵

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Engineering Mechanics-Statics-First Year- Civil Engineering

1.5 Addition of a System of Coplanar Forces

When a force is resolved into two components along the x and y axes,
the components are then called rectangular components. For
analytical work we can represent these components in one of two
ways, using either scalar or Cartesian vector notation.

Scalar Notation.

a)
𝑭𝒙 = 𝑭 𝐜𝐨𝐬 𝜽 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑭𝒚 = 𝑭 𝐬𝐢𝐧 𝜽

b)
𝑭𝒙 𝒂 𝒂
= →→→ 𝑭𝒙 = 𝑭 ( )
𝑭 𝒄 𝒄

−𝑭𝒚 𝒃 𝒃
= →→→ 𝑭𝒚 = −𝑭 ( )
𝑭 𝒄 𝒄

c)
(𝑭𝑹 )𝒙 = 𝑭𝟏𝒙 − 𝑭𝟐𝒙 + 𝑭𝟑𝒙

(𝑭𝑹 )𝒚 = 𝑭𝟏𝒚 + 𝑭𝟐𝒚 − 𝑭𝟑𝒚

(𝑭𝑹 )𝒙 = ∑ 𝑭𝒙
(𝑭𝑹 )𝒚 = ∑ 𝑭𝒚

𝑭𝑹 = √(𝑭𝑹 )𝟐𝒙 + (𝑭𝑹 )𝟐𝒚

(𝑭𝑹 )𝒚
𝜃 = tan−1 | |
(𝑭𝑹 )𝒙

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EXAMPLE 1.6
Figure a

Figure b,

Figure c,

EXAMPLE 1.7
Figure a

Figure b.

Figure c,

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Fundamental Problems

F1-7. F1-10.

Ans: (𝑭𝟏 )𝒙 = 𝟎, (𝑭𝟏 )𝒚 = 𝟑𝟎𝟎𝑵 Ans: 𝑭 = 𝟐𝟑𝟔 𝑵, 𝜽 = 𝟑𝟏. 𝟕𝟔𝒐

(𝑭𝟐 )𝒙 = −𝟑𝟏𝟖𝑵, (𝑭𝟐 )𝒚 = 𝟑𝟏𝟖𝑵
(𝑭𝟑 )𝒙 = 𝟑𝟔𝟎𝑵 , (𝑭𝟑 )𝒚 = 𝟒𝟖𝟎𝑵

F1-8. F1-11.
N

N
N
N

N
N
N

Ans: 𝑭𝑹 = 𝟓𝟔𝟕 𝑵, 𝜽 = 𝟑𝟖. 𝟏𝒐 Ans: 𝑭 = 𝟔𝟐. 𝟓 𝑵, 𝜽 = 𝟏𝟒. 𝟐𝟗𝒐

F1-9. F1-12.

N N
N N N
N

Ans: 𝑭𝑹 = 𝟏𝟐𝟓𝟒 𝑵, 𝜽 = 𝟐𝟓𝟗𝒐 Ans: 𝑭𝑹 = 𝟑𝟏. 𝟐 𝑵, 𝜽 = 𝟑𝟗. 𝟖𝒐

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