FEEG1002 Mechanics, Structures and Materials

S1 (Statics-1) Tutorial problem sheet 1

1. A box is suspended from a crane as shown below. The situation is completely stationary. The mass
of the crane (without the box) is 5000 kg and its centre of gravity is as indicated in the figure.

a) Calculate the maximum box mass the crane can support without falling over.
b) If the mass of the box is 1000 kg, calculate the load on the front and rear axles.

Answers:
a) 3750 kg
b) front 37.3 kN, rear 21.6 kN
c) kN
2. Two identical rods are joined by a pin to form a hinge as shown below. Both the rods and hinge
have to be designed to carry a working load F of 5000 N. The material is steel with a maximum
allowable tensile stress of 400 x 106 N/m2 and a maximum shear stress of 240 x 106 N/m2.

a) Calculate the required diameters of the rod and the pin so they are equally strong.
b) What other factors do we need to consider in designing the hinge?

Answer: a) rod 4.0 mm, pin 3.6 mm

3. A steel bolt is used to clamp together two thick plates as shown in the figure below. The Youngs
modulus of the bolt material is E = 209 x 109 N/m2. The bolt has a pitch of 0.5 mm (i.e. the nut
advances 0.5 mm per turn) and the two plates can initially be considered perfectly rigid, i.e. they do
not deform.
a) How many times do we have to rotate the nut to generate a clamping force of 4000 N?
b) In reality the plates will deform. Would you expect the actual clamping force produced by
turning the nut the estimated number of times to be larger or smaller and why?

Answer: 0.5 turns

4. Consider the simplified bike geometry shown below. The weight of the rider exerts a force F =
750 N on the saddle. The bike frame can be modelled as a pin-jointed truss to facilitate analysis. The
rear tubes can be considered as single bars.
a) Which bars do you expect to be under tension and which under compression?
b) Calculate the forces in bars BD and CD.

Answer: FBD = 530 N, FCD = 375 N

5. For the pin-jointed planar truss shown below find the axial forces in the bars DE, GF and GC. You
may use the method of joints or the method of sections, as appropriate.

Answer: FDE = 25 kN, FGF = 40 kN, FGC = 0 kN