ENGINEERING MECHANICS IME-131

Experiment No. 3:-

To understand law of triangle of forces for a

concurrent forces system.

Registration No: 2017-IM-40

INDUSTRIAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING , UET LHR.

Problem Statement:
There are many practical uses of law of triangular forces in our daily life e-g Cranes, pulleys etc.
If we see a pulley there are two forces acting on it and we have to calculate the resultant force on
it for that purpose we have to use law of triangular forces. Law of triangular forces play an
important role in finding loads on pulleys and in many construction works in cranes for holding
loads. If we apply more load than the force then there’s a chance that our system may fail. In
Cranes we use law of triangular forces to calculate the resultant force or to find the components
of the for

Similarly law of triangle or force can be used to find force acting along all three ropes of crane
carrying a specific load.

In this picture law of triangle of force can also be used to find out the resultant of forces acting
along the ropes carrying a certain load.

Experiment no. 3:-

 To understand law of triangle of forces for a concurrent forces
system.

Objective:-
 To find the unknown weights by using law of triangle of forces
 To measure(find) the resultant of of two forces.

Apparatus:-
 Diagram board.
 Short screws.
 Pulleys.
 Knurled nuts.
 Weight hooks.
 Weights.
 Ring with three cords.

Experiment picture:-

pulley

Drawing
paper Ring with
aboard. thread.

Weights.

Theory:-
A Force is a push or pull on an object. This push or pull comes from the objects
interacting with one another and only from such interactions. Once the interaction stops, there is
no longer any force. The SI unit of force is newton which is defined as the amount of force
required to accelerate a body of mass 1 kg at the rate of one meter per second square in the
direction of the force. While forces come in pairs, there can be even more forces in an
interaction. For example, when you throw a ball into the air, the ball is experiencing the force of
gravity, friction, and the pushing force from you all at the same time!
Law of Triangle of Forces:
If two forces acting at a point are represented in magnitude and direction by the two
adjacent sides of a triangle taken in order, then the closing side of the triangle taken in the
reversed order represents the resultant of the forces in magnitude and direction. The triangle law
of forces can also be stated as. if a body is in equilibrium under the action of three forces acting
at a point, then the three forces can be completely represented by the three sides of a triangle
taken in order. [1]
The triangle law of forces can also be stated as, if a body is in equilibrium under the action of
three forces acting at a point, then the three forces can be completely represented by the three
sides of a triangle taken in order. If an object is in equilibrium under the action of three forces,
the resultant of two forces must be equal and opposite to the third force. Thus, the line of action
of the third force must pass through the point of intersection of the lines of action of the other
two forces. In other words, the system of three coplanar forces in equilibrium, must obey
parallelogram law and triangle law of forces. This condition ensures the absence of translational
motion in the system. [2]
In our daily life, we sometimes deal with situations where we do not know how much
force a body is experiencing while we apply a known force on it. So, using this law we can easily
find those forces if we know value of one force. Hence, we can use law of triangle of forces in
our daily life too.
Diagrams:
1. The Space Diagram (SD)
It is usually necessary to sketch accurately, showing dimensions. This must be a scaled drawing.
2. The Free Body Diagram (FBD) 
Since forces are concurrent, the Free Body Diagram is a dot, but we still need a SD to determine
angles (see step 3 below). See Free Body Diagrams for more information. 

a. Isolate the body.

b. Locate contact points (border crossings). There should be three of course.
c. Line of Action. Back in the space diagrams, determine the line-of-action of forces using
the rules for standard connections (support reactions). Now find the single point of
intersection for the three forces. This will give all the angles.
d. "To the Body". Identify the direction as applied "to the body". 
 3. The Force Polygon (FP)
The force polygon must be drawn strictly to scale, and everything is a Force. The only
information coming from the FBD is; Force magnitudes and Force Angles.
Since there are three forces, we should have a force triangle. Assuming we know all angles and
have unknown lengths this can be solved using CAD, or geometrically using the sine rule. Using
the components method you should end up with simultaneous equations which can be solved by
substitution. [3]

Procedure:-
 First of all paste a blank page on the drawing board.
 Attach three loads to ring with three cords.
 Take the system in the static equilibrium.
 Note the points where the three threads with loads passes.
 Add loads on all of three threads in such a way that the system again become in the
same static equilibrium position as before loads.
 Remove the paper from the drawing board and sketch the lines on the noted points.
 The middle force is known while the forces on left and right sides are calculated by
sketching parallel lines to them.
 The both parallel lines intersect at one point.
 Make a scale and calculate the values of unknown forces.
 Repeat this experiment for different loads.

Observations and calculations:-

No. of Lower Upper weight Upper weight Percentage error
observation weight (observed) g (calculated) g (%)
s (g) Right Left Right Left Right Left
1. 40g 35g 35g 31.5g 34.5g 10% 1.41%
2. 50g 45g 45g 44g 44g 2.2% 4.4%
3. 30g 30g 30g 29g 28.5g 3.3% 5%

Specific calculations:-
35g-34.5g/35g = 0.014g
0.014 x 100 = 1.41%

Result:-
 Hence, we found the two unknown weights by using law of triangle of forces. And system is
in equilibrium for applying of law. In this experiment we have three forces out of which two
are known , the third one is known which can be calculated by using lay of triangle of forces.
We take calculated and observed readings and there is a slight error between two readings the
minimum error is 1.41% and maximum error is 10%.

Comments:-
This law helps us to understand how much weight is distributed in its components to
balance the system. I observed that there is a difference between the observed and calculated
readings so we also calculated the percentage error.

References:
(1) http://www.qsstudy.com/physics/triangle-law-of-forces

(2) http://www.brainkart.com/article/Concurrent-forces-and-Coplanar-forces_3108/

[2]http://www.learneasy.info/MDME/MEMmods/MEM30005A/3FP/three_force.html