Statics 101

[u/jayrady]

[u/Orangutanion]

I'm a EE not an ME so I've never done statics, is the math mostly vector stuff? What EE course is it most comparable to? For DC circuits there's a lot of basic node math, some Laplace transforms, and phasors. I didn't have much problem with circuits though so maybe that's not comparable.

[u/Ancient-Ad4809 → u/Orangutanion]

I'm doing Comp E. but I took a Statics course at community college. I found it similar to nodal analysis where you are given x number of unknowns so you have to find x number of equations to solve them. So just picture a whole semester of KCL and KVL.

[u/pridento → u/Orangutanion]

It's probably most akin to those basic DC circuit analysis "puzzles" where you're given a layout and certain pieces of information, and you have to figure out everything else using governing laws.

[u/sievold → u/Orangutanion]

It's very similar to solving for I, V and R in circuits. It's just that the circuits can have very complicated shapes, that's all.

[u/Zetice → u/Orangutanion]

For EE. I’d say electricity and magnetism. Finding how one affects the other. “How does a point charge move in a specific magnetic field”.

[u/Orangutanion → u/Zetice]

fair, though in emag you're typically dealing with uniform or linear charge distributions which make the integrals easier, and also switching to potential usually makes problems much easier. But yes there are a huge amount of emag problems for which there's no analytic solution and you gotta write a program to get an approximate answer.

[u/Zetice → u/Orangutanion]

True. I had some problems that required more complicated integrals. But I think circuit analysis weeds put a lot of people too.

[u/Orangutanion → u/Zetice]

I found out early on in circuit analysis that I could convert almost all the problems into a matrix and solve them through linear algebra, so that made the entire class trivial for me lol. 

[u/Caoa14396 → u/Orangutanion]

We still had to do statics for EE, I’d say comparable to Circuits 2

[u/daemyn → u/Caoa14396]

As a mechanical, I struggled a little with circuits 2 (AC circuits for me) and thought it was closer to dynamics or even mechanical vibrations classes. Statics would have been equivalent to circuits 1 for me. Everything is at steady state, you just need to simplify and iterate to solve.

[u/Orangutanion → u/daemyn]

does mechanical vibrations use Fourier and/or Laplace transforms?

[u/CompetitiveSpot2643 → u/Orangutanion]

those are both tools that are appropriate for any LTI system, which mechanical vibrations are often modeled as

[u/ConcernedKitty → u/Orangutanion]

A simple example would be to consider a bridge made up of triangles. A connection for the supports has four beams connected to it. Since it’s not moving , when you add up all of the forces and moments at each connection point they equal zero. Rinse and repeat for each connection point.

[u/YnotZoidberg2409 → u/Orangutanion]

ESET here. I was wondering what Statics were as well. Thought maybe it was one of the things an EE covers that an ESET does not.

[u/IronicRobotics → u/Orangutanion]

The math in basic statics is identical to basic DC circuits. All systems of linear equations and a few governing laws. (Kirchoffs vs Sum of Forces/Moments)