ES 1022y Engineering Statics Force System Resultants

Force System Resultants

Moment of a Force
The moment of a force about a point provides a measure of the tendency for rotation
about a point or axis. This tendency for rotation is sometimes called a torque.

For example, consider the moment induced by a wrench with a force applied as shown.

Moment of a Force in 2-D

In the 2-D case, the magnitude of the moment Mo due to force F is

As shown, d is the perpendicular distance, or moment arm, from the axis at point O to the
line of action of the force. The direction of Mo is either clockwise or counter-clockwise
depending on the tendency for rotation.

Principle of moments:

Often it is easier to determine the magnitude of Mo by using components. To do this we

make use of the principle of moments which states that the moment of a force about a

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point is equal to the sum of the moments of the forces components about the same point.
It is sometimes referred to as Varignon's Theorem, after the French mathematician who
first developed it.

Consider the force F which has components F1 and F2, such that

The resultant moment about point O due to components F1 and F2 is given by

For example, consider the figure below

F
a
b

O
d

The moment of force F about point O can be written as

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Fy F

Fx
a
b

Using components the moment of force F about point O can also be written as

The principle of moments is useful if the moments of a force’s components can be easily
determined, or when finding the resultant moment of several concurrent or coplanar
forces.

Resultant moment of several coplanar forces:

Consider a system of forces lying in the x-y plane.

The resultant moment MRo can be found as

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Example Problem

Determine the magnitude and directional sense of the resultant moment of the forces
about point 0.

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Cross Product
The cross product of two vectors A and B yields the vector C, that is

The magnitude of C is defined as the product of the magnitudes of A and B and the sine
of the angle θ between their tails. The direction of C is perpendicular to the plane
containing A and B, with a sense given by the right hand rule.

Hence we can write the cross product as

Now consider the cross product of the Cartesian unit vectors i, j, and k. The cross product
of i x j can be found by noting that the magnitude of the resultant vector is equal to

with a sense given by the right hand rule.

Hence

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Similarly, it can be shown that

The above results can be obtained by using the figure shown above to ‘cross’ two unit
vectors to obtain the direction of the resultant vector in terms of the third unit vector.

If we now express vectors A and B in Cartesian form we can write

One easy way of remembering this is to consider the determinant of a 3 x 3 matrix. For
the matrix shown we can write

By analogy with our result for the cross product if we now write the cross product in
matrix form as

then the determinant of the resulting matrix is equal to

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Moment of a Force in 3-D

Moments in 3-D can be calculated by using the 2-D scalar approach, but it can be
difficult and time consuming. Often it is easier to make use of the cross product to
calculate moments in 3-D.

Using the cross product the moment of force F about point O, or an axis passing through
O and perpendicular to the plane containing O and F can be calculated as

where r is a position vector from O to any point on the line of action of F.

Note that since the length of the moment arm, which is given by

is constant r can extend from the point O to any point along the line of action of F.

Since r x F ≠ F x r, it is important to make sure that you use r x F to obtain the correct
sense of Mo.

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Resultant moment of a system of forces

The resultant moment of a system of forces can be found as

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Example Problem

Determine the moment of the force at A about point P. Express the result as a Cartesian
vector.

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Moment of a Force About an Axis

Recall that when the moment of a force about a point is calculated the moment and its
axis are always perpendicular to the plane containing the force and moment arm.

For the 2-D case shown the moment due to the 20 N force about point O is equal to

directed along the axis Ob which is perpendicular to the plane containing both the force
and moment arm. The component of the moment that is directed along the y axis can be
found by resolving the moment along the y axis, that is

This problem can also be solved directly by noting that the perpendicular distance from
the line of action of force F to the y axis is equal to 0.3 m, hence

In general if the line of action of a force F is perpendicular to an axis aa, the magnitude
of the moment about the axis is given by

where da is the perpendicular or shortest distance from the line of action of F to the axis.
The direction associated with the moment is given by the right hand rule.

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For 3-D problems it is often preferable to use vector analysis. We first calculate the
moment due to force F about any arbitrary point O that lies on the a′a axis using the cross
product, hence

The component of Mo that is directed along the axis a′a can now be found using the dot
product

Ma can also be obtained as

The above equation is also called the triple scalar product. In this equation:
• uax, uay, and uaz are the components of the unit vector defining the direction of the a′a
axis,
• rx, ry, and rz are the components of the position vector from any point on the a′a axis
to any point on the line of action of the force
• Fx, Fy, and Fz are the components of the force vector

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Example Problem

Determine the resultant moment of the two forces about the Oa axis. Express the result as
a Cartesian vector.

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Moment of a Couple
A couple is defined as two parallel forces with the same magnitude, but opposite
directions separated by a perpendicular distance d.

The moment of a couple is defined as

where r is any position vector from the line of action of –F to the line of action of F.

The net external effect of a couple is that the net force equals zero, but there is a net
moment with magnitude Fd.

Since the moment of a couple depends only on the distance between the forces, the
moment of a couple is a free vector. It can be applied at any point on the body, and have
the same external effects on the body.

The couple moment about point O is equal to

But from triangle OAB and the vector laws of addition

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hence

Note that r should be crossed with the positive force F, or the force to which it is
directed, and that M depends only on the position vector r directed between the couple
forces and not on rA and rB.

This is an important distinction between the moment of a couple and the moment of a
force which requires a definite point (or axis) about which moments are determined.

Equivalent couples:

Two couples are said to be equivalent if they

Resultant couple moment:

Since couple moments are free vectors they can be

moved to any point and added using the same rules as
adding any vectors.

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Example Problem

Two couples act on the beam as shown. Determine the magnitude of F so that the
resultant couple moment is 450 lb.ft counterclockwise. Where on the beam does the
resultant couple act?

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Equivalent Forces
When a number of forces and couple moments are acting on a body, it is easier to
understand their overall effect on the body if they are combined into a single force and
couple moment having the same external effect.

The two force and couple systems are called equivalent systems since they have the same
external effect on the body.

Moving a force on its line of action:

Moving a force from O to A, when both points are on the line of action of the vector, does
not change the external effect. This is referred to as the principle of transmissibility. As a
result the force vector is called a sliding vector. Note however that the internal effect of
the force on the body does depend on where the force is applied.

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Moving a force off its line of action:

Moving a force from point A to O requires creating an additional couple moment. Since
this new couple moment is a free vector, it can be applied at any point P on the body.

Finding the Resultant of a Force and Couple System

When several forces and couple moments act on a
body, each force and its associated couple moment can
be moved to a common point O.

All the forces and couple moments can now be added

together to find one resultant force-couple moment
pair.

In the 2-D case, if the force system lies in the x-y plane, then the reduced equivalent
system can be obtained using the following three scalar equations:

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Example Problem

Replace the force and couple moment system by an equivalent force and couple moment
acting at point P.

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Example Problem

Replace the force system by an equivalent force and couple moment at point A.

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Reducing a Force-Moment to a Single Force

If FR and MRO are perpendicular to each other, then the system can be further reduced to
a single force FR by simply moving FR from point O to point P.

In three special cases, concurrent, coplanar and parallel systems of forces, the system can
always be reduced to a single force.

Concurrent system of forces:

All forces act at the point P. There is no resultant couple so the point P is automatically
specified.

Coplanar system of forces:

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Each force in the system produces a couple moment that is perpendicular to the plane
when moved to any point O in the x-y plane. The resultant moment MRO is then
perpendicular to the resultant force FR, which can be moved a distance d from the point O
so that

Parallel system of forces:

When each force in the system is moved to any point O in the x-y plane it produces a
couple moment that only has components about the x and y axes. The resultant moment is
then perpendicular to the resultant force. As before the resultant force FR can be moved a
distance d from the point O so that

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Example Problem

Replace the three forces acting on the shaft by a single resultant force. Specify where the
force acts measured from end A.

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Distributed Loading
In many situations a surface area of a body is subjected to a distributed load. Such forces
are caused by winds, fluids, or the weight of items on the body’s surface. The intensity of
the load is defined as the pressure p, which is defined as the force per unit area or

In this section we will consider the most common case of a distributed pressure loading.
This is a uniform load along one axis of a flat rectangular body.

In such cases, if the pressure is uniform across the plate, then if we multiply the pressure
by the width of the plate we can write

where w is a function of x and has units of force per length.

Now consider an element of length dx. The magnitude of the force dF acting on the
element is equal to

The net force acting on the plate is found by integrating over the length of the plate to
give

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Hence the magnitude of the resultant force is equal to the total area under the loading
curve.

The force dF will produce a moment about point O given by

As before the total moment about point O is found by integrating over the length of the
plate, which yields

Assuming that FR acts at x , it will produce a moment about point O that is equal to

Equating the last two equations, we obtain the result that

This equation represents the x coordinate for the geometric centre or centroid of the area
under the loading curve.

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Example Problem

Replace the distributed loading by an equivalent resultant force and specify where its line
of action intersects member BC, measured from C.

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