Module 4: Force Representation in 3D

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From the course by Georgia Institute of Technology

Introduction to Engineering Mechanics

1181 ratings

Georgia Institute of Technology

Introduction to Engineering Mechanics

1181 ratings

This course is an introduction to learning and applying the principles required to solve engineering mechanics problems. Concepts will be applied in this course from previous courses you have taken in basic math and physics. The course addresses the modeling and analysis of static equilibrium problems with an emphasis on real world engineering applications and problem solving. The copyright of all content and materials in this course are owned by either the Georgia Tech Research Corporation or Dr. Wayne Whiteman. By participating in the course or using the content or materials, whether in whole or in part, you agree that you may download and use any content and/or material in this course for your own personal, non-commercial use only in a manner consistent with a student of any academic course. Any other use of the content and materials, including use by other academic universities or entities, is prohibited without express written permission of the Georgia Tech Research Corporation. Interested parties may contact Dr. Wayne Whiteman directly for information regarding the procedure to obtain a non-exclusive license.

From the lesson

Forces and Particle Equilibrium

In this section, students will learn the definition of a force and how to represent a force as a vector in two (2D) and three (3D) dimensions. Students will learn the concept of particle equilibrium and equilibrium of systems of particles. Concepts will be reinforced with example problems.

Module 1: Course Introduction6:38

Module 2: Definition of a Force4:28

Module 3: Force Representation in 2D and Resultants8:46

Module 4: Force Representation in 3D8:53

Module 5: Particle Equilibrium4:46

Module 6: Systems of Particles Equilibrium11:27

Module 7: Solve a Particle Equilibrium Problem6:54

Meet the Instructors

Dr. Wayne Whiteman, PE
Senior Academic Professional
Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

Hi. Welcome back to An Introduction to

Engineering Mechanics. One of the important skills that

engineers have is to take a complex problem or a real world situation and

model it so that we can analyze or perhaps design our system in a different

way and still have our model. were.

We wanted simplest model possible yet we wanted to be giving us accurate or

suitable results and so, last class we talked about modelling a or representing

a force in a 2 dimensions and x and y or a plane just a single plane.

Sometimes, some of the problems that you may have to work with will have to be

used 3 dimensional approach. To be more accurate and to provide you a

better solution. And so, in this case, today, we're going

to look at a 3-d representation in X, Y and Z coordinate system.

So, the learning outcome for today is to express a three-dimensional force in

terms of it's rectangular and components. And then we're also going to make use of

the dot product to find the projection of a force vector.

Vector. So this is the steps that you'll go

through in, in, doing a 3D representation of a force.

You're going to find the position vector along the line of action of force, you're

going to determine a unit vector along that line of action.

And then you're going to mu-, multiply that unit vector by the magnitude of

force to provide you with a force vector. it's easiest to learn this material by

actually going through an example. You can always refer back to this slide

to see the steps that we've taken to, to, to do the problem.

So here I have a, a worksheet, and I'm looking for a 3D force representation of

the force F and then the force P, and Once we have both of those, we can find

the resultant of those 2 forces using the, the parallelogram, parallelogram

rule that we learned in the last module. And so what I'm going to do is, I'm going

to do the forced, F with you together. I'm going to ask that you do force P on

your own and then you also do the resultant on your own since you'll then

know how to do those steps. So the first step is to find the position

vector along the line of action of the force.

In this case, the force F goes from point A up to point B.

And so, we're looking for the position vector from A to B.

And what we do as I, I mentioned here is we walk from tail to head.

The tail of the force is at point a, the head of the line of action for the force

is at point b. And so in going from point a to point b

we so how far do we go in the x direction.

Well in this case we go -3 units in the x direction.

That's -3i. And then we go, + 12 units in the j

direction, or the y direction. So that's +12j.

And then we go three units in the k direction, or +3k.

Okay. And here I've written it again.

Once we have that now we want to find a unit vector in the direction of that

force F. And the way we do that is that we der, we

divide the position vector by its magnitude.

And so the magnitude, the magnitude of the vector AB can be found by taking the

square root of the sum of the squares. So we have the square root of

(-4)^2+(12)^2+(3)^2, and that = 13. And so, our unit vector, which I'll

represent with a E, with a vector designation of the e, so this is eAB is

equal to the position vector AB over the magnitude of the position vector AB.

Or in this case that's going to be -4/13, in the i direction, + 12/13 in the j

direction, + 3/13 in the k direction. So now we have a unit vector in the

direction of the force, we know the magnitude of the force it was given as

260 pounds and so the final expression of the force F.

As a vector = magnitude of the force * the unit vector.

So that's going to include both magnitude and direction.

And so we have 260(-4/13i+12/13j+3/13k). And so F= 4/13*260 is -80i.

12/13*260 is +240j. And then 3/13*260 is +60k.

So we have magnitude now. We have direction.

And the last thing we need to put on here is units.

And since we're in the SI units, this is Newton's.

So that's how I represent, the force F in 3 dimensions.

Now I'ld like you to do the same thing with force, P.

Which a 100 Newton magnitude and you can see p goes from point b to c.

And then find the resultant of those two forces, F and P together.

And I've included a solution to this problem in your module hand outs.

And so I ask that you do this on your own and then check your self out to see that

you've learned these outcomes. Okay.

The last thing we want to do this module is find the component or projection over

force onto another force or line using the definition of a dot product.

So lets take a force F and a force Q. With an angle between them of theta.

And we're going to use the definition of a dot product to find the projection. So

by definition, F dotted with Q, is the same as Q dotted with F.

And that's equal to the magnitude of F * the magnitude of Q * the cosine of the

angle between them. So, if I want to find the projection of F

in the Q direction, what I'll do is I'll take the force F and I'll dot it with a

unit vector in the direction of Q. And we know how to find a unit vector of

Q because we just did that. So we have, we'll call the unit vector u

And so u=vectorQ/the magnitude of the vector q.

And then we can finally find the projection of F on the q direction by

saying F dot u = the magnitude of F * the magnitude of u.

If the magnitude of u is 1 times, the cosine of the angle between them.

So that's the projection of F in the q direction.

So that's this distance here. Magnitude of F cosine of theta.

And that's where we'll finish up for today's module.

Thanks.

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