University of California, Berkeley Department of Mechanical Engineering

Fall, 2011 Professor George C. Johnson

ME C85/CE C30 Section 1
ME C85/CE C30 Section 1
Introduction to Solid Mechanics

Homework 1
Due 4:30 pm, Friday September 2


1. Read the Homework Guidelines for this course and answer the following question: Is your solution in
the correct format?
2. Problem 2.7. A trolley that moves along a horizontal beam is acted upon by two forces as shown. (a)
Knowing that = 25, determine by trigonometry the magnitude of
the force P so that the resultant force exerted on the trolley is vertical?
(b) What is the magnitude of the resultant? (c) Solve for the magni-
tude of the force P by resolving the applied forces into components.
(Note that parts (a) and (c) should have the same answer.)
3. Problem 2.11. A trolley that moves along a horizontal beam is acted
upon by two forces as shown. (a) Determine by trigonometry the
magnitude and direction of the force P so that the resultant is a verti-
cal force of 2500 N. (b) Resolve the forces into components to de-
termine the force P so that the resultant is a vertical force of 2500 N. (Note that parts (a) and (b) should
have the same answer, though the representation may be different.)

4. Problem 2.23. The hydraulic cylinder BD exerts on member ABC at
point B a force P directed along the line BD. Knowing that P must
have a 750 N component perpendicular to member ABC, determine
(a) the magnitude of the force P, (b) its component parallel to ABC.



5. Problem 2.35. Two cables are tied together at C and loaded as shown.
Determine the tension in cables AC and BC.



University of California, Berkeley Department of Mechanical Engineering
Fall, 2011 Professor George C. Johnson
ME C85/CE C30 Section 1

6. Problem 2.51. A 250 kg crate is supported by several rope-and-pulley arrangements as shown. Deter-
mine for each arrangement the tension in the rope. (The tension in the rope is the same on each side of a
simple, ideal pulley. This can be proved using the methods of Chapter 4.)


7. Problem 2.76. Knowing that the tension in AB is 39 kN, deter-
mine the required values of the tension in AC and AD so that the
resultant of these three forces is vertical (i.e., in the direction AO).







8. Problem 2.87. A triangular plate of weight 18 lb is supported by
three wires as shown. Determine the tension in each wire.




University of California, Berkeley Department of Mechanical Engineering
Fall, 2011 Professor George C. Johnson
ME C85/CE C30 Section 1
ME C85/CE C30 Section 1
Introduction to Solid Mechanics


Homework Guidelines

You will be turning in homework nearly every week. Please pay attention to the guidelines below in
completing the assignments.

1. Your solutions should be on standard engineering paper (engineering computation pads are
available at the bookstore).
2. Along the top of every sheet, put the assignment number, course, your name and student ID, and
the page number along with the total number of pages in your submission.
3. Staple all pages together with a single staple in the top left corner.
4. Write clearly so that the readers can understand what you have done. This means organizing your
thoughts logically and including some text to help guide the readers through your thought
process.
5. Every (or nearly every) problem will be associated with a physical system. Your solution to each
problem should include a schematic diagram of the system and, in almost every case, at least one
free-body diagram or other relevant diagram describing the ways in which forces act on the body
(or bodies) that constitute the system. Again, please be careful in your drawing of these
diagrams. They need not be completely to scale, but a good drawing should be useful to you in
solving the problem.
6. Indicate the main concepts, principles or methods that you are using as you work through the
problems. Dont make the readers guess about what you are doing!
7. Highlight key results using boxes or other means to draw the readers attention to your answers.
8. Feel free to pose questions within your responses if you are really stuck as to where to go (or if
you think you have the right answer, but wonder about some aspect of your approach). This will
help us address issues that many students are having, or just help us think of different ways of
explaining what it is that we want you to learn!
9. To the extent possible, hold off plugging in numbers until you have to do so. In many cases, this
will allow you to derive results that are much more general than if you start off with a strictly
numerical approach.
10. When you do plug in numbers, pay attention to the number of digits that you report. The text
suggests using 4 significant figures for values beginning with 1 and 3 significant figures for all
other values. (I refer to this as rounding to 3.5 significant figures.) In some cases, even 3
significant figures are hard to justify, but you should never report more than 4 significant figures.
11. Once you have solved a problem, take a minute or two to do a sanity check. Do the results
seem reasonable to you, either in terms of the numbers that you get at the end, or in terms of
special cases of general equations that you might consider.

The following pages provide an example of the format and approach that you are to take in preparing your
homework solutions. I originally solved this problem by decomposing each of the forces into its Cartesian
components, then realized that the force triangle approach might be more straightforward. Both approaches are
included.