Lecture 1: Introduction to Engineering Mechanics

• Is the science that describes and predicts the conditions of rest or motion of solid bodies or fluids under action of forces

  Mechanics
• Is the branch of engineering that applies the principles of mechanics to mechanical design. This design must take into account the effect of forces.

  Engineering Mechanics
• is the study of bodies at rest or in equilibrium

  statics
• is the study of bodies in motion under the action of forces

  dynamics
• is part of dynamics that focuses on the motion of the bodies without considering the forces.

  kinematics
• considers the effects of forces on a body in motion

  kinetics
• is used to locate a position of a point in space

  length
• is the daily cycle of light and darkness

  time
• is the measure of inertia in a body. Amount of matter in a body

  mass
• represents the action of one body to another

  forces
• means very small amount of matter which may be assummed to occupy a single point in space

  particle
• can be considered as a large number of particles in which all the particles remain in a fixed distance from one another

  rigid body
• this states that two forces acting on a particle may be replaced by a single force, called their resultant

  parallelogram law
• this states the conditions of equilibrium or of motion of a rigid body will remain unchanged if a force acting at a given point of the rigid body is replaced by a force of the same magnitude and the same direction, but acting at a different point , provided that the two forces have the same line of action.

  Principle of transmissibility
• a particle at rest will remain at rest and a particle in motion will remain in motion unless an outside force acts upon it


  first law: Law of inertia
• a particle acted upon by a force will accelerate in the direction of the force. The magnitude of the acceleration is directly proportional to the force while inversely proportional to the mass.

  second law: law of acceleration
• For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction


  third law: law of action reaction
• any particle of matter in the universe attracts any other with a force varying directly as the product of the masses and inversely as the square of the distance between them

  newton's law of universal gravitation
• the universal gravitational constant is also known as

  cavendish constant
• it is the gravitational pull of earth upon a body

  weight
• is the quantitative measure of the amount of matter in each body

  mass
• these are arbitrary magnitudes and names assigned to dimensions adopted as standard of measurement

  units
• refers to the type of measurement

  dimension
• also known as the absolute system


  SI unit
• base units are meter, kilogram and seconds

  MKS
• base units are centimeter, grams and seconds

  CGS
• Also known as the gravitational system

  English units or imperial units
• base units are foot, pound force, and seconds

  FPS