Republic of the Philippines

ISABELA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, ARCHITECTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
City of Ilagan Campus

ENGINEERING MECHANICS (EE 212)

VECTORS

Introduction
Mechanics is the study of forces that act on bodies and the resultant motion that those
bodies experience. With roots in physics and mathematics, Engineering Mechanics is the basis of
all the mechanical sciences: civil engineering, materials science and engineering, mechanical
engineering and aeronautical and aerospace engineering. Engineering Mechanics provides the
“building blocks” of statics, dynamics, strength of materials, and fluid dynamics. Engineering
mechanics is the discipline devoted to the solution of mechanics problems through the integrated
application of mathematical, scientific, and engineering principles. Special emphasis is placed on
the physical principles underlying modern engineering design.

Engineering mechanics is the application of mechanics to solve problems involving

common engineering elements. The goal of this Engineering Mechanics course is to expose
students to problems in mechanics as applied to plausibly real-world scenarios. Problems of
particular types are explored in detail in the hopes that students will gain an inductive
understanding of the underlying principles at work; students should then be able to recognize
problems of this sort in real-world situations and respond accordingly.
Further, this text aims to support the learning of Engineering Mechanics with theoretical
material, general key techniques, and a sufficient number of solved sample problems to satisfy
the first objective as outlined above.
\DEFINITIONS

VECTORS

Vectors – Is a quantity composed of both magnitude and direction.

Ex. Gravity force, Displacement, Acceleration, Momentum

Scalar – Is a quantity composed of magnitude only.

Ex. Speed, Distance, Volume, Current

Force (F) – Any influence that is capable of reducing a change in the motion of the body.

- Is any influence that tend to change the state of the body.

- is a push or pull upon an object resulting from the object's interaction with another
object. Whenever there is an interaction between two objects, there is a force upon each of the
objects. When the interaction ceases, the two objects no longer experience the force.
Forces only exist as a result of an interaction.

- In physics, a force is any interaction that, when unopposed, will change the motion of
an object. A force can cause an object with mass to change its velocity (which includes to begin
moving from a state of rest), i.e., to accelerate. Force can also be described intuitively as a push
or a pull. A force has both magnitude and direction, making it a vector quantity. It is measured in
the SI unit of newton’s and represented by the symbol F.
TYPES OF FORCES

1. COLINEAR FORCES

- Forces that act on the same line of action

- When the lines of action of all the forces of a system act along the same line,
this force system is called collinear force system.

2. PARALLEL FORCES

- Are forces that are on the same angle to one another

- Lie in the same plane and have lines of action that never intersect each other.
Two forces that are parallel can either be in the same direction or in opposite directions.

- is a situation in which two forces of equal magnitude act in the same direction within
the same plane, with the counter force in the middle.

3. COUPLE FORCES

- Is a pair of parallel forces of the same magnitude but opposite on direction.

- Consists of two parallel forces that are equal in magnitude, opposite in sense and do not
share a line of action. It does not produce any translation, only rotation. The resultant force of a
couple is zero. BUT, the resultant of a couple is not zero; it is a pure moment.

- Refers to two parallel forces that are equal in magnitude, opposite in direction and do
not share a line of action.
4. FRICTIONAL FORCE

- A force that always acts on opposite direction to the applied force.

- Refers to the force generated by two surfaces that contacts and slide against each other.
These forces are mainly affected by the surface texture and quantity of force requiring them
together. The angle and position of the object affect the volume of frictional force.

- Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and
material elements sliding against each other.

5. COPLANAR FORCES

- Are forces lying on the same plane.

- Have all the forces acting in one plane. They may be concurrent, parallel, non-
concurrent or non-parallel.
6. CONCURRENT FORCES

- Are forces that meet on the same common point.

- Forces pass through a common point. In the previous case involving the application of
two forces to a body, it was necessary for them to be colinear, opposite in direction, and equal in
magnitude for the body to be in equilibrium.

7. NON CONCURRENT FORCES

- Are forces that do not meet in one common point.

Graphical Method
Analytical Method
EXAMPLES IN GRAPHICAL AND ANALYTICAL METHODS
1)

2)

3)
Prepared by:

ENGR. JEAN CLAUDE M. BENITEZ, RME,ME-EE

Instructor