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, by clicking the feedback button in the html footer. When reporting errors, please include a bit of the surrounding text to help locate the problem area in the source. The
Engineering Statics Google Group is a good place to ask the authors and users questions about the book. Please join the group and say “Hi” 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 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
End of Chapter exercises.
The randomized end-of-chapter exercises were made using the
Numbas open-source assessment system and Geogebra for the dynamic diagrams. Exercises in the Engineering Statics Repository can be freely remixed into your own homework sets or online exams using the Numbas Editor. You can also use the editor to write new questions or modify existing ones.The exercises can be integrated into your institution’s Virtual Learning Environment to set deadlines and automatically record grades. See the
Numbas Documentation for more information. To fully take advantage of all the features, you may need the support of your institution’s IT department to install the Numbas LTI provider.Please ask questions about Numbas integration and share any good problems you write with the Engineering Statics Group.
On the Cover.
Photo of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and city skyline, taken from Yerba Buena Island by Artur Westergren.
Image source:
https://unsplash.com/photos/Rx92z9dU-mA
