Lecture

Structural Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications

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In course

ME-231(b): Structural mechanics for SV

This course aims to provide a concise understanding of how materials and structures react to loads. It covers the basics of stress and strain in multi dimensions, deformation and failure criteria. The course is tailored to problems students from life scien ...

Description

This lecture introduces the fundamental concepts of structural mechanics, covering the relationship with other branches of mechanics, statics, dynamics, kinetics, stress analysis, and fluid mechanics. The instructor presents real-world examples, such as analyzing fracture toughness in human bone, designing a robotic hand, measuring turgor pressure in bacteria, and assessing the stiffness of cell membranes. Practical applications include calculating stresses, strains, and material properties to optimize structural designs and understand mechanical behavior at different scales.

Instructor

Georg Fantner

Official source

Related concepts (20)

Applied mechanics

Applied mechanics is the branch of science concerned with the motion of any substance that can be experienced or perceived by humans without the help of instruments. In short, when mechanics concepts surpass being theoretical and are applied and executed, general mechanics becomes applied mechanics. It is this stark difference that makes applied mechanics an essential understanding for practical everyday life.

Structural mechanics

Structural mechanics or mechanics of structures is the computation of deformations, deflections, and internal forces or stresses (stress equivalents) within structures, either for design or for performance evaluation of existing structures. It is one subset of structural analysis. Structural mechanics analysis needs input data such as structural loads, the structure's geometric representation and support conditions, and the materials' properties. Output quantities may include support reactions, stresses and displacements.

Structural analysis

Structural analysis is a branch of solid mechanics which uses simplified models for solids like bars, beams and shells for engineering decision making. Its main objective is to determine the effect of loads on the physical structures and their components. In contrast to theory of elasticity, the models used in structure analysis are often differential equations in one spatial variable. Structures subject to this type of analysis include all that must withstand loads, such as buildings, bridges, aircraft and ships.

Stress–strain analysis

Stress–strain analysis (or stress analysis) is an engineering discipline that uses many methods to determine the stresses and strains in materials and structures subjected to forces. In continuum mechanics, stress is a physical quantity that expresses the internal forces that neighboring particles of a continuous material exert on each other, while strain is the measure of the deformation of the material. In simple terms we can define stress as the force of resistance per unit area, offered by a body against deformation.

Materials science

Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials science stem from the Age of Enlightenment, when researchers began to use analytical thinking from chemistry, physics, and engineering to understand ancient, phenomenological observations in metallurgy and mineralogy. Materials science still incorporates elements of physics, chemistry, and engineering.

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