Preface Preface
Engineering Statics is a free, open-source textbook appropriate for anyone who wishes to learn more about vectors, forces, moments, static equilibrium, and the properties of shapes. Specifically, it has been written to be the 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, the 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.
Please contact our team with feedback and suggestions that can be provided directly to the lead author Dan Baker via email [email protected] or using Hypothesis annotations, requiring a Hypothesis user account. We would also appreciate knowing if you are using the book for teaching purposes. There are currently no instructor resources available beyond the textbook itself.
Get the book.
The entire book is available for free as an interactive online ebook. This should work well on all screen sizes, including smartphones. A free PDF version, suitable for reading on a tablet or computer, is available for download for offline use. The PDF will be searchable and easy to navigate using embedded links. The source files for this book are available on GitHub.
History of the Book.
This book began as the vision of a handful of the authors to create a book filled with interactives instead of static figures. Spurred into action by funding opportunities in the Fall of 2018, the team worked on the book through 2019 and launched this working draft version in Fall 2020. Over the two years of creating the book, our team grew to a coast-to-coast representation of large public universities, small private colleges, and community colleges.
License.
Engineering Statics by Daniel Baker et al. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. You are free to download, use, and print this work as you wish to. You can also modify the text as much as you like (create a custom edition for your students, for example), as long as you attribute the parts of the book you use to the authors.
This book was written and developed by a dedicated team of collaborators, including:
The book was supported by our team’s tireless efforts and funding from the Colorado Department of Higher Education, the Colorado State University Digital Learning Initiative, and the Colorado State University Libraries.