Statics of a Particle

Statics

Statics is the study of the effect of external forces on structures or
components which are in a state of static equilibrium.

Statics allows the calculation of internal forces which are acting on various
parts of a structure or on individual components of an assembly of parts.

For structural integrity purposes it is essential that the forces being carried
by individual parts of a structure or assembly are known

Once the forces are known, further calculations can be carried out to
determine the extent of any deformation and magnitude of any resulting
stresses that are generated in the parts

Decisions can then be made as to the structural integrity of the structure
or part based on limiting values of deformation and/or stress



Definitions

Particle: defined as a body possessing matter but of no significant
dimensions.

Rigid body: defined as an assembly of particles, the distance between
any two of which remains fixed (hence no deformation).

Force : defined as the 'action or cause which impresses or tends to
impress motion and/or deformation on matter'.

Coplanar forces: sets of forces having lines of action lying in one plane.


Definitions

Forces encountered in practice are usually found to be applied to a 'solid
body' as a whole or over a finite area of the bodies boundary.

Initially, however, consider only the forces acting on a single particle.

The notion of a particle provides a convenient starting point for study, as
the results of the analysis of particle behaviour can then be extended to a
finite rigid body.

In what follows, important concepts of resultant force, force components
and equilibrium will be defined.
Addition of forces
Consider the following situations:

In all three cases there are two externally applied forces which, if added
according to the usual rules, would sum to 15 N. It is evident that in case
(a) the net force is only 5 N (10-5) and that in case (b) the net force is 15
N (10+5). Cases (a) and (b) are special in that the external forces have the
same line of action only in case (a) they are in opposite directions.

Case (c) is a more general situation where the lines of action of the two
forces are at an angle to each other. In this situation the forces must be
added using the parallelogram of forces.





Parallelogram of forces

Consider a point A on which is acting two forces P and Q in the directions
AB and AC respectively. The length of the lines AB and AC are in
proportion to the magnitudes of the forces P and Q. The two forces may
be replaced by a single force of magnitude R (known as the RESULTANT)
which is represented in both magnitude and direction by the diagonal AD
of the parallelogram ABCD as shown below.

R represents the sum of the forces P and Q.

NOTE: ALL vector quantities may be added in this way.

The parallelogram may be simplified to a triangle by taking the upper (or lower)
half. Note that the forces P and Q go 'tail-to-head' in any order and R is the
'closing vector' of the triangle.

Resultant force

The resultant of any number of coplanar forces acting simultaneously on a
particle is the single force that is equivalent to that force set.


The three forces F
1
, F
2
and F
3
can be replaced by the resultant force F
R
.

Addition of more than two forces

The resultant of a coplanar force set can be found graphically by using the
'polygon law'. By placing the force representations 'tail to head' in any
order, the resultant is then represented by the line joining the initial
point to the terminal point.
See example 2.2, p18, Ryder & Bennett.
Force components

For ease of analysis forces may be resolved into two or more force
components and still have the same effect.

Coplanar component forces

Here the force is resolved into two components which are perpendicular
to each other and are coplanar with the actual force.

F
x
= F cos
F
y
= F sin

From consideration of the figure below and the polygon law it follows that the
x-component of the resultant R of any number of such forces is the sum of the
x-components of the individual forces; and similarly for the y-components.

Thus, R
x
= F
1
cos
1

+ F
2
cos
2

= F
1x
+ F
2x

R
x
= F
x

and similarly,
R
y
= F
y


Also, if the sums of the x-components and y-components are known for a
set for forces, the resultant can be determined in magnitude and
direction as follows:


) + R (R R =
y x
2 2

and

x
y
R
R
R
= tan

Equilibrium of a Particle

If the resultant force on a particle is zero then the particle is said to be in
EQUILIBRIUM.

On consideration of Newtons 1st Law, it follows that a particle in
equilibrium is one which is either at rest or moving with constant speed in
a straight line.

In practice, we may want to calculate unknown forces acting on a particle
which is known to be in equilibrium. This can be done knowing that the
equivalent resultant force acting on the particle is zero for equilibrium to
exist. To determine the unknown forces two conditions can be used:
(i) If the forces acting on a particle are summed by the polygon law, then if the
resultant is zero the polygon must close. The graphical condition: 'for a
particle to be in equilibrium the force polygon must close'.

(ii) Since the magnitude of the resultant |R| = [F
x
)
2
+ (F
y
)
2
] then for R = 0
the summations F
x
and F
y
must both be zero. The analytical
condition: 'for a particle to be in equilibrium F
x
= 0 and F
y
= 0'.

'for a particle to be in equilibrium the force polygon must close'
'for a particle to be in equilibrium F
x
= 0 and F
y
= 0'
Weight of a Particle

The weight of a particle is the vertical force experienced by the particle
from the attraction of the Earth. This gravitation force can be found by
considering Newton's 2nd Law, where, if a particle mass m (kg) is being
accelerated under the action of a force F (N), the acceleration a (m/s
2
) is
given by F = ma. Therefore, any particle falling freely under the action of
its weight alone descends with acceleration magnitude g, (Galileo).
Therefore we can write,

W = mg (N)

The value of g may vary slightly from one locality to the next, but normally
a value of 9.81 m/s
2
is adopted.
Problem Solution

To obtain solutions to problems where the body considered is assumed to
be a particle, further assumptions can be made.

(1) If a force is applied by means of a massless cord then the direction of
the force and its line of action coincide with the cord.

(2) If a cord passes over a smooth pulley the two forces exerted by the
cord on the pulley are equal in magnitude, this magnitude being
referred to as the TENSION in the cord.

(3) If a body is in contact with a smooth surface the force of the surface
on the body is in the direction normal to the surface.