Engineering Students(Statics)

[Melchiah]

Going to be taking Statics(CE210 at UAB) this summer, and will be a 9 week term as opposed to the normal 12 week term.

What I want to know is:

What kind of material can I expect to see in Statics?

Will the shorter term really make a difference in difficulty?

[Ryany]

Trusses

...doubt it, especially since you won't have a bunch of other classes adding to your workload.

[RPGTyrant]

I took a half-semester statics for my CE degree, and you should know dot and cross products most definitely for the portions of the class that focus on angular statics. The biggest thing they should try to get across is that the sum of all forces is 0 in statics, which for the most part is the foundation for your other civil engineering courses. The fact that it's 9 weeks to me means that they will just review basic math concepts that help with statics less. As the poster before me said, if you don't have any other classes to bog things up, you shouldn't have an issue with a slightly accelerated workload, as it's one of the more easily approachable topics in engineering.

Topics may include:
-Methods for finding unknown forces in a system, such as a plate hanging from 4 ropes, a cantilever beam, the previously mentioned truss system, and stationary pulley systems. The node method, and the cut method are two things you'll hear when referring to truss systems.

-Properly dissecting a statics problem, identifying unknowns, knowns, and a big thing in my class was drawing force diagrams correctly. This as with all forces summing to 0 is a key component for future classes in this area of study to build off of.

[Colm]

Expect to see trusses, 2 and 3-D static equilibrium diagrams of particles and rigid bodies, frames and beams. You may see machines, and depending on your course, you may see an introduction to some kinematics.

How hard it is depends on how hard your profs make the geometry. If it's the only course you're taking, 9 weeks vs. 12 won't make a huge difference.

But fuck Statics, EE for life. \m/

[Melchiah]

ME here.

Which means Thermo I and II.

Freaking CEs don't even have to have Thermo I anymore, they get "Intro to Thermal Science" instead.

[Khamsin]

Don't forget friction as it applies to stationary objects that would be moving if friction didn't apply. e.g. a parked car on a hill, or a box on a rough ramp.

But other than that, just the frames, trusses, etc. that everyone else mentioned. More specifically, you'll become more familiar with centers of mass, force, moment, moments of inertia, second moments of inertia, modulus of elasticity, stress, strain, deflection, etc.

Although the elasticity, stress, and strain may wait until mechanics of materials, depending on how they break it up at your school. Deflection might be included as a means to solve indeterminate systems.

Math you'll want to be familiar with are matrices, dot/cross products, sin/cos/tan, integrals, derivatives (depending on if they get into indeterminate systems and deflection), and addition/subtraction.

[Flarega]

I didn't think statics was too tough, but be ready for a lot of physics. A ton of it is figuring out what forces on your FBDs you can eliminate by cleverly summing moments about certain points. And the way your teacher teaches you is kind of important.

Anyway, I'm sure you (and many other engineers) have heard horror stories about classes like statics and dynamics, and it is imperative that you do not stress so much over them, because it gets harder. Be confident in your abilities to succeed in difficult classes and you will be fine. Just know that your school placed confidence in you thinking you could handle the curriculum, and know that you can pass.

[RPGTyrant]

ME here.

Which means Thermo I and II.

Freaking CEs don't even have to have Thermo I anymore, they get "Intro to Thermal Science" instead.

Yeaaah, at our university CE didn't even have any thermo type classes, everything is assumed adiabatic other than a small section of environmental engineering, and one lesson in structural engineering.

[Khamsin]

I'm civil and I still took thermo.

But yeah, statics is nothing to worry about. Thermo might be, only because it'll be the only class not like all the others. Although, just as all the other classes are about F = MA, thermo is just about P = nRT.

[Jer]

A lot of the material is just summing the forces. If you've taken 1st level physics, it is pretty much the same thing, except nothing is supposed to move.

[Purrrfect]

I seem to remember a lot of matrix work that I hated. That may be because I think somehow I went through middle/high school without ever really learning how to work with them, so it was a mindfuck figuring out how some of the answers came out. But if you have those and can do a FBD it won't be hard. I don't like how I have to take dynamics or mech of materials even though EE just to fill an egr elective...

[Ryany]

I guess it depends what field of engineering you are in, but statics is an extremely important class to have down cold for future classes in Civil. (I know the OP isn't Civil) I had at least 5-6 classes after statics that relied heavily on what I learned in there.