Has anyone taken an engineering course in strength of materials?

[Random Variable]

What would be covered in such a course that wouldn't be covered in a statics course?

 

[GeneValgene]

i took an intro materials course once in mechanical engineering here at UT - Austin. we looked into microstructures, crystal structures, point defects, and solid state diffusion. you also learn to read unary and binary phase diagrams. might also look into heat treatment and how that affects microstructure. i took a lab too where we did impact testing and hardness testing.

 

[Gillbot]

You look more in depth at how materials are made and how properties are changed as well. Benefits and downfalls and what materials are suited where, etc.

 

[ApacheXMD]

in my Strength of Materials, you're not so much concerned with the structure of a material (like the crystalline molecular structure) but rather you're dealing with Young's modulus, yield strength, bending and torsion loads and displacements, and you learn shear flow, stress concentrations, and mohr's circle.

you need a good foundation in Statics in order to do some of the statically indeterminate problems. (you'll learn what those are, basically you can't solve the problem using just balanced forces like you did in statics so you need to take into account displacements of materials ie bending). So yeah. It's nothing like statics really.

-patchy

 

[Howard]

I think I have a course like that in a nearby university called Materials Sciences...

 

[HokieESM]

"Strength of materials" (often called "Deformable Bodies" at some universities) is really a study of stress and strain. Statics focuses on loads (forces, torsions, etc)... but never gets into "how does this structure fail". You also frequently talk about material parameters--yield strength, Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio, and the like. ApacheXMD gave a fair description.

A more practical "idiot's" explanation is that statics (and dynamics) are more of a mathematical exercise with vectors... deforms focuses more on the "physics" of the situation--stress and strain control most failure mechanisms.

 

[GermyBoy]

Because it will actually study the properties of the metals and alloys, not just the pressure and force that can be applied to them. How to make a metal stronger, for example.

 

[CokeJunkie]

I don't know if my experience will help:

I've taken both Statics and Mechanics of Materials at Tulane's Engineering School. Mechanics of Materials applied much of the general theory and methodology of statics in order to calculate things like deflection, shear stress, axial stress, torsion, bending moments, etc. The materials class had a narrower focus, with statics as a prereq. Problems like: calculate the length of, and spacing between, steel rivets to attach a steel rail to wooden timber having such and such properties, etc.

 

[Random Variable]

So it would be OK to first take statics (which I just finished), strength of materials, and then dynamics?

 

[SpongeBob]

Originally posted by: Vespasian
So it would be OK to first take statics (which I just finished), strength of materials, and then dynamics?

That was the normal progression at my school.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: CokeJunkie
I don't know if my experience will help:

I've taken both Statics and Mechanics of Materials at Tulane's Engineering School. Mechanics of Materials applied much of the general theory and methodology of statics in order to calculate things like deflection, shear stress, axial stress, torsion, bending moments, etc. The materials class had a narrower focus, with statics as a prereq. Problems like: calculate the length of, and spacing between, steel rivets to attach a steel rail to wooden timber having such and such properties, etc.

Who did you have for Statics & MoM?

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

aAAARGGGH!!

You just made my ears bleed with all those terms! I left all that behind in college.....then you HAD to go and bring it up again!

 

[CokeJunkie]

Originally posted by: werk
Who did you have for Statics & MoM?

Nauman for statics..

an indian guy whose name I never got straight for MoM. It's ridiculously hard to pronounce - I only remember it as an odd jumble of letters. Short, very mild mannered. Office in civ-E department.

I'm a CS grad myself.. those happened to be the only two non-EECS engineering courses I took.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: CokeJunkie

Originally posted by: werk
Who did you have for Statics & MoM?

Nauman for statics..

an indian guy whose name I never got straight for MoM. It's ridiculously hard to pronounce - I only remember it as an odd jumble of letters. Short, very mild mannered. Office in civ-E department.

I'm a CS grad myself.. those happened to be the only two non-EECS engineering courses I took.

Ah..just wondering if you had the same people as me. I was in BME from 97-99, had Anderson (former Dean of Engineering) for Statics & Dynamics (because stupid BME makes you take both in one course) and Villarraga for MoM. I gave up on BME in 00, though and ended up finishing up in CIS @ the UC.

 

[ynot167]

Thank God I switched out of Engineering in college. Whats worst...enginerd or computer geek?

 

[Triumph]

Originally posted by: ynot167
Thank God I switched out of Engineering in college. Whats worst...enginerd or computer geek?

DEFINITELY computer geeks. They're the kind that... well I shouldn't say any more, I'm sure I'd insult someone here.

I'd add in to the topic, but everyone else has pretty much covered it. Statics 1st semester -> Dynamics, Strength of Materials (Deforms), Material Science 2nd semester. I miss school.