Mechanical Engineering Systems

5

Statics

Summary

Mechanics is the study of state of rest or motion of bodies under the action of forces; statics is that aspect of it involving the study of bodies at rest. Newton’s first law states that bodies stay at rest or in steady motion unless acted on by a resultant force. Thus when we have bodies at rest there is no resultant force and thus the forces acting on a body at rest must cancel each other out to leave no resultant, they are said to be in equilibrium. Engineers are interested in statics because it enables them to design structures such as bridges or buildings and determine the conditions necessary for them to remain standing and not fall down.

The chapter starts with a revision of the term vector and the conditions for equilibrium ...