Engineering Mechanics - Statics

by J. L. Meriam, L. G. Kraige

Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 0471739324

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Book Description

This concise and authoritative book emphasizes basic principles and problem formulation. It illustrates both the cohesiveness of the relatively few fundamental ideas in this area and the great variety of problems these ideas solve. All of the problems address principles and procedures inherent in the design and analysis of engineering structures and mechanical systems, with many of the problems referring explicitly to design considerations.

Known for its accuracy, clarity, and applications, Meriam & Kraige's Engineering Mechanics: Statics has provided a solid foundation of mechanics principles for more than 50 years. Now in its new Sixth Edition, the book continues to help readers develop their problem-solving skills with an extensive variety of highly interesting problems related to engineering design. In the new edition, more than 50% of the homework problems are new. There are also many new sample problems. To help readers build necessary visualization and problem-solving skills, the book strongly emphasizes drawing free-body diagrams--the most important skill needed to solve mechanics problems.

The publisher, John Wiley & Sons

This update continues the same high standards set by previous editions and adds new features of help and interest to students. Explains how to construct and solve mathematical models which describe the effects of force and motion on a variety of structures and machines. Contains a vast amount of problems, ranging from simple to complex, which deal with principles and procedures inherent in the design of engineering structures and mechanical systems. Sample problems with detailed solutions include helpful observations of common errors and pitfalls to be avoided.

Customer Reviews

'Engineering Mechanics' is one of the toughest freshman year courses at my university. Of the many books I referred to, I found that Meriam's treatment of the subject quite different. It was bit rigid, and quite unlike Beer & Johnston. I liked the book - the explanations were too good that you could not miss it.

The text is extremely dense and concise. The principles are developed almost axiomatically and assume the reader has fully digested earlier material. The concepts are developed in a highly abstract, mathematical way. This makes the text an extremely useful reference once you are familiar with the material, but it is quite difficult for students new to the material. The instructor has to work hard to expand and develop the conceptual material.

There are a number of worked examples with annotations explaning the solution. I found these examples quite helpful, however, there is not any material specifically focussed on problem solving skills.

The strength of this book is its extensive collection of excellent problems illustrated by easy-to-understand color figures. The problems draw on a wide range of real-world examples. Their concrete nature helps makes a Statics course seem relevant and interesting. The quality and scope of the problems easily exceeds that of most other texts. Many of the problems require the student to first figure out what they're being asked to calculate, an important real-world aspect of problem solving. One drawback is that a number of problems depend on fairly tricky geometrical reasoning, which tends to obscure the statics skills being practiced. Finally, there isn't any real attempt to introduce the computer to solving statics problems. As a consequence, there are no problems asking for judgements -- questions such as "at what angle is the force in the bar the least?" Similarly, the large number of simultaneous equations to be solved in some problems could be done more easily on the computer. However, instructors may prefer that students first become proficient solving the problems by hand before making computer-based solutions.

Overall, the problems make this a good text for an instructor to use, but they will have to work hard to help the students learn the concepts and problem solving skills needed to be successfull.

I am a student attempting to learn statics for the first time. I prefer examples that start simple, working to a higher level of complexity, and don't combine too many theories at once. This book seems to move at a faster pace than allows me to really grasp the individual concepts as they are presented. Each topic needs more attention to individual details. I wish there were more sample problems, with direct refrences to the text as to how the theories were applied. I'm having a hard time laying down a mental foundation with so few examples. To its credit, it is in color, and illistrations are easy to read.

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My lecturer for this subject in first year was excellent, and took the time to explain all that was needed, so I never really looked at Dynamics, and Statics was fairly easy. On hitting second year, however, I found that it was not that easy. I fell back on the text, and found that it covered all that I needed. Between myself, a friend and Meriam and Kraige I was able to score a pretty decent mark, and much more importantly understand what it was all about.

The book has fair to good examples, plenty of diagrams and a fairly accessible approach. Being an incipient engineer rather than a mathematician, I found that I coped very well with the style, which while it covered the maths, it focussed on what was happening.

A very solid text in a subject that is impossible to cover well for every reader. It suited me well, and it still sits on my shelf as a very useful reference.