PHYS 1221: Classical Mechanics

Abstract

Course description: This is a course in Classical Mechanics with a focus on mechanical engineering applications, in a format that delivers both knowledge and skill development. The first part of the lectures focuses on generalized degrees of freedom and generalized forces, specifically on how to identify them and then put them to good use. As engineering applications, the course will investigate a library of basic mechanisms used in mechanical engineering, specifically, how the motions of the moving parts are interconnected. The course will continue with kinematics, the science of moving parts, which is developed again in the framework of generalized coordinates and applied to standard mechanical systems. This will be followed up by an investigation of Newton’s laws of motions, with applications on both statics and dynamics. The concepts of work and energy and the associated principles, as well as the concepts of impulse and associated principles will be investigated in the last part of the course. Each weekly module will consist of a section concentrated on the working principles and a section concentrated on engineering applications. Course learning outcomes: Regarding knowledge, the students will develop a deep understanding of the principles governing the motion and functioning of mechanical systems. They will also become familiar with a large library of mechanisms that are used in mechanical engineering to create and transfer motion, force or torque. The students will learn the principles behind the functioning of these mechanisms, their purpose and their common applications. Regarding skills, the students will learn how to assess quantitatively the kinematics of a complex systems with several moving parts and how to describe these motions using natural degrees of freedom, how to calculate kinetic energies and linear as well as angular momenta, which are fundamental quantities that enter in the laws of conservation and transformations of energy and momenta. Important Note: The course is self-contained and occasionally it covers elements of calculus. They are integral parts of the course.