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Coplanar Forces: Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering

This document provides an introduction to analyzing coplanar forces. It discusses resolving forces into rectangular x and y components using either scalar notation or Cartesian vector notation. Forces can be represented as the sum of their x and y components, which are determined using trigonometry based on the force magnitude and angle. The resultant of multiple coplanar forces is found by adding the respective x and y components of each force using scalar algebra, and determining the resultant magnitude and direction. Two examples are provided to demonstrate these concepts.

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Azipheli Vamva
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41 views10 pages

Coplanar Forces: Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering

This document provides an introduction to analyzing coplanar forces. It discusses resolving forces into rectangular x and y components using either scalar notation or Cartesian vector notation. Forces can be represented as the sum of their x and y components, which are determined using trigonometry based on the force magnitude and angle. The resultant of multiple coplanar forces is found by adding the respective x and y components of each force using scalar algebra, and determining the resultant magnitude and direction. Two examples are provided to demonstrate these concepts.

Uploaded by

Azipheli Vamva
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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LECTURE 4

Coplanar Forces

Presented by:
M. Gxamza

Department of Industrial & Systems


Engineering
Introduction
• When a force is resolved into two
components along the x and y axes, the
components are then called
rectangular components .
• For analytical work we can represent
these components in one of two ways,
using either scalar notation or Cartesian
vector notation.
• The rectangular components of force F
are found using the parallelogram law,
so that 𝐅𝐅 = 𝐅𝐅𝐱𝐱 + 𝐅𝐅𝐲𝐲 .
• Because these components form a right
triangle, they can be determined from:
𝐅𝐅𝐱𝐱 = 𝐅𝐅cosθ and 𝐅𝐅𝐲𝐲 = 𝐅𝐅sinθ
Introduction
• Instead of using the angle 𝜃𝜃, however,
the direction of F can also be defined
using a small “slope” triangle.
• Since this triangle and the larger
shaded triangle are similar, the
proportional length of the sides gives:

Or

And

Or
Introduction
• It is also possible to represent the 𝑥𝑥 and
𝑦𝑦 components of a force in terms of
Cartesian unit vectors i and j.
• They are called unit vectors because they
have a dimensionless magnitude of 1.
• Since the magnitude of each component
of F is always a positive quantity, which is
represented by the (positive) scalars
𝐹𝐹𝑥𝑥 and 𝐹𝐹𝑦𝑦 .
• We can express F as a Cartesian vector:

𝐅𝐅 = Fx 𝐢𝐢 + Fy 𝐣𝐣
Introduction
• Either of two methods can be used
to determine the resultant of
several coplanar forces.
• Each force is first resolved into its 𝑥𝑥
and 𝑦𝑦 components and then the
respective components are added
using scalar algebra.
• The resultant force is then formed
by adding the resultant components
using the parallelogram law.
• If scalar notation is used:
Introduction
• The magnitude of 𝐅𝐅𝑅𝑅 is then found
from the Pythagorean theorem that
is:

• The angle 𝜃𝜃 , which specifies the


direction of the resultant force, is
determined from trigonometry:
Example 1
Example 1
Example 2
Example 2

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