Skip to main content
Logo image

Engineering Statics: Open and Interactive

Preface About this Book

Engineering Statics: Open and Interactive is a free, open-source textbook for anyone who wishes to learn more about vectors, forces, moments, static equilibrium, and the properties of shapes. Specifically, it is appropriate as a textbook for Engineering Mechanics: Statics, the first course in the Engineering Mechanics series offered in most university-level engineering programs.
This book’s content should prepare you for subsequent classes covering Engineering Mechanics: Dynamics and Mechanics of Materials. At its core, Engineering Statics provides the tools to solve static equilibrium problems for rigid bodies. The additional topics of resolving internal loads in rigid bodies and computing area moments of inertia are also included as stepping stones for later courses. We have endeavored to write in an approachable style and provide many questions, examples, and interactives for you to engage with and learn from.

Feedback.

Feedback and suggestions can be provided directly to the lead author Dan Baker via email at dan.baker@colostate.edu, or through the Engineering Statics Google Group. We would also appreciate knowing if you are using the book for teaching purposes.

Access.

The entire book is available for free as an interactive online ebook at https://engineeringstatics.org. While the interactive version works best on larger screens, it will also work smartphones but with some limitations due to limited screen width. A non-interactive PDF version, suitable for printing or offline reading on a tablet or computer, is available at https://engineeringstatics.org/pdf/statics.pdf. The PDF is searchable and easy to navigate using embedded links.
The source files for this book are available on GitHub at https://github.com/dantheboatman/EngineeringStatics.

License.

Engineering Statics: Open and Interactive by Daniel Baker and William Haynes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License BY-NC-SA. You are free to download, use, and print this work as you wish as long as your use is not primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or monetary compensation. You can also modify the text as much as you like (for example to create a custom edition for your students), as long as you attribute the parts of the book you use to the authors. Please share your improvements with the authors!
All the GeoGebra content found in the book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 International License with more detailed information found at https://www.geogebra.org/license

On the Cover.

Photo by Artur Westergren from Yerba Buena Island across the San Francisco bridge of the San Francisco, California skyline. Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/Rx92z9dU-mA

History.

This book is the vision of a handful of instructors who wanted to create a free and open Engineering Statics textbook filled with dynamic, interactive diagrams to encourage visualization and engineering intuition.
Dr. Baker brought together a team of volunteers from large public universities, small private colleges, and community colleges across the United States to write the text and create the interactive elements. Some content was adapted with permission from Jacob Moore’s Mechanics Map - Open Textbook Project. http://mechanicsmap.psu.edu/. After two years of development the book was released to the public in 2020.
The book continues to evolve thanks to the contributions, suggestions, and corrections made by users of the text, both professors and students. The original authors are listed below, and others who have contributed are acknowledged in the source code on GitHub.
Daniel W. Baker
Colorado State University
Project lead, chapter author, and interactive developer
Devin Berg
University of Wisconsin - Stout
Chapter author
Andy Guyader
Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
Chapter author
William Haynes
Massachusetts Maritime Academy
Chapter author, interactive developer, and PreTeXt lead
Erin Henslee
Wake Forest University
Chapter author
Anna Howard
North Carolina State University
Chapter author
James Lord
Virginia Tech
Chapter author
Randy Mondragon
Colorado State University
Interactive developer
Jacob Moore
Penn State University – Mont Alto
Chapter author
Scott Bevill
Colorado Mesa University
Chapter reviewer
Eric Davishahl
Whatcom Community College
Chapter reviewer
Joel Lanning
University of California, Irvine
Chapter reviewer
Richard Pugsley
Tidewater Community College
Chapter reviewer