ME 1204: Engineering Statics

Dr. Faraz Junejo

 Assessments
 3 Quizzes: 12 Marks (4 Marks each) You will
be notified 1 Week in advance

 2 Assignments: 13 Marks (6.5 Marks each)

 Mid Term Exam (8th Week – 20th Feb): 25 Marks

Final Exam (17th Week – 23rd April) : 50

Marks
 Class Conduct
Absences from class
Late in class
Assignment submission
Absence from Mid Term or Final Exam
Cheating
Anything you want to ask, ASK NOW !!
Text & Reference Books
      Course Content
(i)  Introduction, Forces in a plane, Forces in
space
(ii) Statics of Rigid bodies
(iii) Equilibrium of Rigid bodies (2 and 3
dimensions)
(iv) Analysis of structures (Trusses, Frames
and Machines)
(v) Centroids and Centres of gravity
(vi)Friction
 What is Mechanics?
 Mechanics is the physical science that deals
with the behavior of bodies under the
influence of forces, i.e.

Study of what happens

to a “thing” (the
technical name is
“BODY”) when FORCES
are applied to it.
 Mechanics of Rigid Bodies
 Mechanics can be divided into 3 categories:
1.) mechanics of rigid bodies,
2.) mechanics of deformable bodies, and
3.) mechanics of fluids.

 This course deals solely with the mechanics of

rigid bodies.
 A rigid body is a body which does not deform
under the influence of forces.
 Mechanics of Rigid Bodies

 In all real applications, there is always

deformation, however, many structures
exhibit very small deformations under normal
loading conditions, such as bridges and rigid
body mechanics can be used with sufficient
accuracy in those cases.
 Statics
 The mechanics of rigid bodies is sub-divided
into two areas, statics and dynamics.

 Statics is the study of bodies in equilibrium.

 This means there are no unbalanced forces on

the body, thus the body is either at rest or
moving at a uniform velocity (i.e. it has no
acceleration, implying body is moving with constant speed
along a straight path).
 Dynamics
 Dynamics is the study of bodies which are not
in equilibrium, thus there is acceleration.

 Dynamics is further subdivided into:

 kinematics and

 kinetics.
 Dynamics
 Kinematics is the study of the motion of a body,
without regard for how the motion is produced.
 Kinematic principles are often applied to the
analysis of machine members to determine
positions, velocities, or accelerations at various
parts of the machines' operation.
 Kinetics is the study of the forces which cause
motion, or the forces which result from motion.
 Summary: Mechanics
Mechanics can be defined as that science which
describes and predicts the conditions of rest or
motion of bodies under the action of forces.

MECHANICS

Mechanics of Mechanics of Mechanics of

Deformable Bodies Rigid Bodies Fluids

Statics Dynamics
 Objectives

 The goal of this course is to help students

develop a comprehensive understanding of

the basic principles of statics so that they can

apply them to real situations.

 Basic Concepts
 The following concepts and definitions are
basic to the study of mechanics, and they
should be understood at the outset.
 Length

 Time
 Mass
 Force
 Basic Concepts: Length
 Length is the quantity used to describe the
position of a point in space relative to another
point.
 This distance is described in terms of a standard unit
of length.
 The universally accepted standard unit for length is
the meter.
 Basic Concepts: Time
 Time is conceived as succession of events (i.e.
interval between two events) and is a basic
quantity in dynamics.

 Principles of Statics are time independent, i.e.

Time is not directly involved in the analysis of
statics problems.
 The generally accepted standard unit for time
is the second.
 Basic Concepts: Mass
 Mass is a property of matter, as it can be
considered to be the amount of matter
contained in a body.

 The mass of a body determines both the action of

gravity on the body, andthe resistance to changes in
motion.

 This resistance to changes in motion is referred to as

inertia, which is a result of the mass of a body.
 Basic Concepts: Force
 Force is the action of one body on another.
For example, push or pull exerted by one body
on another.

 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.
 Basic Concepts: 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 (center of mass), i.e. a
particle has a mass but a size that can be
neglected.
 Basic Concepts: Particle (contd.)
 For example, size of the earth is insignificant
comparison to size of its orbit, and therefore
earth can be modeled as a particle when
studying its orbital motion.

 When a body is idealized as a particle, the principles

of mechanics reduce to a simplified form, since the
geometry of the body will not be concerned in the
analysis of the problem.
 Basic Concepts: Rigid Body
 A rigid body can be considered as a combination of a
large number of particles in which all particles
remain at a fixed distance from one another, both
before and after applying a load.

 This model is important as material properties of any

body that is assumed to be rigid will not have to be
considered when studying the effects of forces acting
on the body.
 Basic Concepts: Rigid Body
 Statics deals primarily with the calculation of external
forces which act on rigid bodies in equilibrium.

 Determination of the internal deformations belongs to

the study of the mechanics of deformable bodies,
which normally follows statics in the curriculum i.e.
Mechanics or Strength of materials course.
Basic Concepts: Concentrated Force
 Newton’s Laws of motion
Newton's laws of motion consist of
three physical laws that form the basis
for classical mechanics.

They describe the relationship between

the forces acting on a body and
its motion due to those forces.
 Newton’s 1st Law
 Every body remains in a state of rest or
uniform motion (constant velocity) unless it is
acted upon by an external unbalanced force.
 Newton’s 2nd Law
 A body of mass m subject to force F undergoes
an acceleration a that has the same direction as
the force, and,

 a magnitude that is directly proportional to the

force and inversely proportional to the mass,

i.e.,  F = ma
 Newton’s 1st and 2nd Law
 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.
 Newton’s 3rd Law
 The forces of action and reaction between interacting
bodies are equal in magnitude, opposite in direction,
and collinear (they lie on the same line).

 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.
 Units of Measurement
In mechanics we use four fundamental quantities called
dimensions.

These are length, mass, force, and time.

The units used to measure these quantities cannot all be

chosen arbitrarily because they must be consistent with
Newton’s second law i.e. F = ma
 Units of Measurement
The four fundamental dimensions and their units and symbols
in the two systems (i.e. SI and U.S. Customary Unit or British
system of units, also called the footpound- second (FPS)
system) are summarized in the following table.
 International System of Units (SI)
 As shown in the table, in SI, the units kilogram (kg) for
mass, meter (m) for length, and second (s) for time are
selected as the base units, and the Newton (N) for force is
derived from the preceding three by Eq. F = ma

 Thus, force (N) = mass (kg) * acceleration (m/s2) or

Thus, 1 Newton is the force required to give a mass of 1
kg an acceleration of 1 m/s2.
 SI Units (contd.)
 Consider a body of mass m which is allowed to fall
freely near the surface of the earth.

With only the force of gravitation acting on the body, it

falls with an acceleration g toward the center of the earth.
This gravitational force is the weight W of the body, and is
found from Eq. F = ma

Thus, W (N) = mass (kg) * acceleration (m/s2)

 U.S. or FPS System
 As shown in the table, in the U.S. or FPS system, the units of feet
(ft) for length, seconds (sec) for time, and pounds (lb) for force are
selected as base units, and the slug for mass is derived from Eq. F =
ma

 Thus, force (lb) = mass (slugs) * acceleration (ft/sec2), or

Therefore, 1 slug is the mass which is given an

acceleration of 1 ft/sec2 when acted on by a force of 1 lb.
 U.S. or FPS System (contd.)
 If W is the gravitational force or weight and g is

the acceleration due to gravity, Eq. F = ma gives

 Summary: Units of Measurement
Four fundamental physical quantities.
• Space (or 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.
 UNIT SYSTEMS
• Length, mass and time are called the base units.
• The fourth unit, Force (Newton) is derived from
the acceleration term.

• We will work with two unit systems in statics:

• International System (SI)
• U.S. Customary (U.S. or FPS)
Summary of unit systems
 Prefixes

Example
 Significant Figures
 Significant figures (or digits) of a number

are those digits that carry meaning

contributing to its precision (accuracy).
 Significant Figures
 The rules for identifying significant figures when writing
or interpreting numbers are as follows:

1. All non-zero digits are considered significant. For

example, 91 has two significant figures (9 and 1), while
123.45 has five significant figures (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5).

2. Zeros appearing anywhere between two non-zero

digits are significant. Example: 101.12 has five
significant figures: 1, 0, 1, 1 and 2
 Significant Figures (contd.)
3. Leading zeros are not significant. For example,
0.00052 has two significant figures: 5 and 2.

4. Trailing zeros in a number containing a decimal point

are significant. For example, 12.2300 has six significant
figures: 1, 2, 2, 3, 0 and 0. The number 0.000122300
still has only six significant figures (the zeros before the
1 are not significant).
 Exercise: 1
Round off the following numbers to three significant
figures
(i )4.65735  4.66m
(ii )55.578 s  55.6 s
(iii )4555  4.56(103 ) N  4.56 KN
(iv )2768kg  2.77(103 )(103 ) g  2.77 Mg
(v )45320 KN  45.3 MN
(vi )568(105 )mm  56.8(106 )(103 )m
 56.8km
(vii )0.00563mg  5.63(10 )(10 ) g
3 3

 5.63g
 Significant Figures (contd.)
 In addition, 120.00 has five significant figures. This
convention clarifies the accuracy of such numbers; for
example, if a result accurate to four decimal places is
given as 12.23 then it might be understood that only
two decimal places of accuracy are available. Stating
the result as 12.2300 makes clear that it is accurate to
four decimal places.
 COMMON CONVERSION FACTORS
• Work problems in the units given unless otherwise
instructed!
• 1 ft = 0.3048 m

• 1 lb = 4.4482 N

• 1 slug = 14.5938 kg

• Example: Convert a torque value of 47 in • lb into SI units.

– Answer is 5.31026116 N • m?
 ATTENTION QUIZ

1. For a static’s problem your calculations show the final answer as

12345.6 N. What will you write as your final answer?

A) 12345.6 N B) 12.3456 kN C) 1.23E4N

D) 12.3 kN E) 123 kN D) 1.235x104 N

Example: 1
&2
Example: 3
Exercise: 1
Exercise: 2
Exercise: 2 (contd.)
Exercise: 3
Exercise: 4