ME1213-Engineering Mechanics

K Raja Sekhar M.Tech(IITD)

Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering Department

IIIT Nuzvid
rajasekhark@rguktn.ac.in

December 26, 2019

K Raja Sekhar M.Tech(IITD) Assistant Professor Mechanical Engineering

EM Department (RGUKT) December 26, 2019 1/9
 Adding forces by components

It is useful in many problem to

resolve a force into two compo-
nents that are perpendicular to
each other
F is resolved into a component of
Fx along the x axis and Fy along
the y axis.
The parallelogram drawn is a
rectangle , and Fx and Fy are
called rectangular components.
The x and y axes are usually
choosen to be horizontal and ver-
tical

K Raja Sekhar M.Tech(IITD) Assistant Professor Mechanical Engineering

EM Department (RGUKT) December 26, 2019 2/9
 Forces in terms of unit vectors

Figure: Unit vector along x and y axes

Recalling the definition of the product of a scalar and a vector given in

previous section, note that we can obtain the rectangular components Fx
and Fy of a force F by multiplying respectively the unit vectors i and j by
appropriate scalars
Fx= Fxi Fy = Fyj
Fx = Fx i + Fy j
K Raja Sekhar M.Tech(IITD) Assistant Professor Mechanical Engineering
EM Department (RGUKT) December 26, 2019 3/9
 Contd..

The scalars Fx and Fy may be positive or negative, depending upon the sense
of Fx and of Fy, but their absolute values are equal to the magnitudes of the
component forces Fx and Fy, respectively. The scalars Fx and Fy are called
the scalar components of the force F, whereas the actual component forces
Fx and Fy should be referred to as the vector components of F. However,
when there exists no possibility of confusion, we may refer to the vector as
well as the scalar components of F as simply the components of F.
K Raja Sekhar M.Tech(IITD) Assistant Professor Mechanical Engineering
EM Department (RGUKT) December 26, 2019 4/9
 Contd..

Direction of force :When a force F is defined by its rectangular

components Fx and Fy, we can find the angle defining its direction from
F
tanθ = Fyx
We can
q obtain the magnitude of force F by applying the Pythagorean the-
orem Fx2 + Fy2

K Raja Sekhar M.Tech(IITD) Assistant Professor Mechanical Engineering

EM Department (RGUKT) December 26, 2019 5/9
 Addition of Forces by Summing x and y Components

We cannot obtain any practical

trigonometric solution from the force
polygon that defines the resultant of
the forces. In this case, the best ap-
proach is to obtain an analytic so-
lution of the problem by resolving
each force into two rectangular com-
ponents. Consider, for instance, three
forces P, Q, and S acting on a particle
A (Fig. 2.21a). Their resultant R is
defined by the relation
R=P+Q+S

K Raja Sekhar M.Tech(IITD) Assistant Professor Mechanical Engineering

EM Department (RGUKT) December 26, 2019 6/9
 Contd..

Rx = Px + Qx + Sx
Ry = Py +PQy + Sy
Rx = P Fx
R y = Fy

We thus conclude that when several forces are acting on a particle, we obtain
the scalar components Rx and Ry of the resultant R by adding algebraically
the corresponding scalar components of the given forces. (This result also
applies to the addition of other vector quantities, such as velocities, accel-
erations, or momenta

K Raja Sekhar M.Tech(IITD) Assistant Professor Mechanical Engineering

EM Department (RGUKT) December 26, 2019 7/9
 In practice, determining the resultant R is carried out in
three steps

Resolve the given forces (Fig.

2.21a) into their x and y
components (Fig. 2.21b).
Add these components to obtain
the x and y components of R
(Fig. 2.21c).
Apply the parallelogram law to
determine the resultant R = Rx
i + Ry j

K Raja Sekhar M.Tech(IITD) Assistant Professor Mechanical Engineering

EM Department (RGUKT) December 26, 2019 8/9
 The End

K Raja Sekhar M.Tech(IITD) Assistant Professor Mechanical Engineering

EM Department (RGUKT) December 26, 2019 9/9