TABLE OF CONTENTS Statics is concerned with the forces of interaction between bodies or within bodies of mechanical systems that have no significant accelerations. Typical engineering problems require the analyst to predict forces induced at certain points by known forces applied at other points.
Every element of a mechanical system must satisfy Newton's Second Law of Motion, that is, the resultant force f acting on the element is related to the acceleration a of the element by
in which m represents the mass of the element. (This entire chapter deals with the special case in which a = 0) Newton's Third Law require that the force exerted on a body A, by a body B, is of equal magnitude and opposite direction as the force exerted on body B by body A. A careful, unambiguous account of this law is essential for successful analysis of forces; rules for assuring that this is done properly will be reviewed in the Equilibrium section.
Every pair of material elements is attracted toward one another by a pair of gravitational forces, the magnitude of which is given by
in which ? is the universal gravitational constant (about 6.7 10 ?11 N m 2/kg 2), m 1 and m 2 are the masses of the elements, and r is the distance between...
