MECHANICS OF SOLIDS

Department of civil engineering,

Assam Professional Academy

Introduction to solid mechanics

Fundamental

and derived units.

System of units.
Mathematical useful Data.
Various laws of forces and their applications.

Fundamental Units
The

basic units of measurement are called

fundamental units

The

primary fundamental units which most

commonly used are length, mass and time.

Thermal,

electrical and illumination disciplines

are also represented by fundamental units. These
are called auxiliary fundamental units.

Derived Units
All

units other than the Fundamental Units which

can be measured in the terms of Fundamental units
are called the Derived Units.
Examples of Derived units:
Derived unit of area is the square metre (m2)
Derived unit of density is the kilogram per cubic
metre (kg/m3or kg m3).

Measurement of Fundamental Units

Basic Physical
Quantity
Mass

Fundamental Symbols
Units
used
Kilogram
Kg

Length

Meter

Time

Second

Electric Current

Ampere

Temperature

Kelvin

Luminous Intensity Candela

cd

Quantity of matter

mol

Mole

Supplementary Physical Units

There

are also two other Supplementary Physical

quantities which are given two other Supplementary
physical Units.

Supplementary
physical quantity

Supplementary Symbols
Unit
used

Plane angle

Radian

rad

Solid Angle

Steradian

Sr

Systems of units
To measure

the fundamental physical quantities

Length, Mass and time we have four systems of
units:
(1) C.G.S System (Metric system)
(2) F.P.S System (British system)
(3) M.K.S System
In all these three systems only three physical
quantities length, mass and time are considered
to be fundamental quantities.
(4)S.I System(system International)
Here seven physical quantities are considered.

Relation between Systems of units

System of unit Length

Mass

Time

C.G.S system

centimeter

gram

second

M.K.S system

meter

kilogram

second

F.P.S system

foot

pound

second

S.I system

meter

kilogram

second

Definitions of Fundamental Units

Meter:

It is the unit of length. The distance

travelled by light in vacuum in 1/299792458
second is called 1 m.
Kilogram: The mass of a cylinder made of
platinum-iridium alloy kept at International
Bureau of Weights and Measures, is defined as 1
kg.
Kelvin:The fraction 1/273.16 of the
thermodynamic temperature of triple point of
water is called 1 K.

Definitions of Fundamental Units

Second:

The second is the duration of 9,162,631,770

periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition
between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state
of the cesium-133 atoms.
Ampere: Suppose two long straight wires with
negligible cross-section are placed parallel to each
other in vacuum at a distance of 1m and electric
currents are established in the two in the same
direction. The wires attract each other. If equal
currents are maintained in the two wires so that the
force between them is 2 107 N/m, the current in
any of the wires is called 1A. Here, Newton is the SI
unit of force.

Definitions of Fundamental Units

Mole:

The amount of a substance that contains

as many elementary entities as there are as the
number of atoms in 0.012 kg of carbon-12 is
called a mole.
Candela: The SI unit of luminous intensity is 1
cd, which is the luminous intensity of a black
body of surface area 1 600000 m2 , placed at the
temperature of freezing platinum and at a
pressure of 101,325 N/m2 , in the direction
perpendicular to its surface.

S.I Units(System International)

The

International System of Units (French:

Systme international d'units, SI) is the modern
form of the metric system, and is the most
widely used system of measurement.
The International System of Units has been
adopted by most developed countries;
The system was published in 1960 as the result
of an initiative that began in 1948.

The seven Fundamental units are

considered as S.I Units
Basic Physical
Quantity
Mass

Fundamental Symbols
Units
used
Kilogram
Kg

Length

Meter

Time

Second

Electric Current

Ampere

Temperature

Kelvin

Luminous Intensity Candela

cd

Quantity of matter

mol

Mole

Supplementary Physical Units are

also considered as S.I units
The

two other Supplementary Physical quantities

which are also considered as S.I units

Supplementary
physical quantity

Supplementary Symbols
Unit
used

Plane angle

Radian

rad

Solid Angle

Steradian

Sr

Scalar Quantities
The

physical quantities which can be

completely represented with its magnitude
are called Scalar quantities.

The

Examples of Scalar Quantities are:

Area,volume,temperature,density,speed
etc.

Vector Quantities
The

physical quantities which cannot be

completely represented with its magnitude
but requires its direction also are called
Vector quantities.

The

Examples of vector quantities are:

Velocity,Acceleration,Momentum etc.