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Department of Mechanical Engineering

Undergraduate Curriculum Learning Objectives

MCEN 2063 - Mechanics of Solids

1. Uniaxial Loading

  • Analyze statically indeterminate problems
  • Analyze stresses in members subjected to temperature changes as well as applied loads.
  • Understand the displacement method for systems with many elements subjected to axial loading.
  • Develop the force-displacement relationships for trusses using the displacement method in a matrix analysis framework.
  • Learn how to use load cells, an Instron tester, and dial indicators from a design optimization project involving an indeterminate structure.
  • Learn to work on a small team as part of this project.

2. Torsional Loading of Circular Shafts

  • Understand the basic relationships between torque, angular deflection,
    shear stress, shear strain, and torsional stiffness.
  • Determine stresses and deflections for statically determinant and indeterminate systems.
  • Use the displacement method for torsional systems.
  • Calculate power transmitted to rotating parts and its relationship to torque and speed.
  • Become familiar with motors, angular measurement, and rotating components through a design optimization project involving the design of a rotating shaft.
  • Learn to work in small teams.

3. Shear and Bending in Beams

  • Develop both shear and bending moment diagrams.
  • Understand and derive the differential equations relating load, shear and bending moment.
  • Solve for shear and bending moments in a beam when the applied loads are described by singularity functions.

4. Beam Flexure

  • Derive and determine shear and normal stress.
  • Derive and determine deflections in beams subjected to bending.
  • Perform stress and deflection analyses of beams containing non-uniform cross-sections.
  • Use double integration and superposition methods to obtain beam deflections.
  • Solve simple statically indeterminate problems.
  • Learn to apply strain gages, perform some simple machining, and understand
  • Wheatstone bridges via a design optimization project involving the design of a beam subjected to a given load.

5. Stress and Strain

  • Understand the general state of stress at a point on a body in three dimensions.
  • Understand the equilibrium relationships of stress components at a point in a body in a state of plane stress or plane strain.
  • Perform stress and strain transformations and determine the principal and maximum shear stresses in a body.
  • Calculate the stresses in thin walled pressure vessels(cylindrical and spherical).
  • Develop the relationship between strain and displacement in a body subjected to plane strain or plane stress.
  • Understand the relationship between stress and strain for linear elastic materials.

6. Combined Loading

  • Calculate the stresses in a body subjected to combined axial, bending and/or torsional loading.

7. Buckling

  • Derive relationships leading to the calculation of critical buckling loads for axial loaded beams with different boundary conditions.

Catalog Description

Shear force and bending moment; Torsion; Stresses in beams; Deflection of beams; Matrix analysis of frame structures; Analysis of stress and strain in 2-D and 3-D (field equations, transformations); Energy methods; Stress concentrations; Columns. Lectures and homework assignments involve computer work and hands-on laboratory work in the ITLL, documented by written reports. Prerequisites: MCEN 2023

Prepared by J. Zable and M. Dunn 1/21/98