Ibn Alkhatib Secondary Schoul .Tangier. 4.

Sense
Archimedes thrust Point of
Our Objective :
To establish the relationship between the loss in weight of a solid
and weight of water displaced when the solid is fully immersed in the
following solutions:

Tap water

Strong salty water

Who is Archimides ?
Application
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The point of application is the exact
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location at which a force is applied to
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a body. This point is usually described
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by a set of coordinates and is
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represented graphically by the tip of
.................... the arrowhead. The point of
application is unique to each force.
Experience N1 : Characteristics of vector The point and the force cannot move.
r
P If several forces of equal magnitude
weight : are present in a given situation, the
forces are unique based open the point
Action line : of application, the line of action and
their sense. It can happen that forces
of equal magnitude share the same
point of application, in this case, the
line of action and sense determine
their uniqueness.
Magnitude
It is common to express the
Magnitude of a force in units of
Sense : pounds (lbs), kips (kilo-pounds; 1 kip
= 1000 lbs), newtons (N), or kilo-
. Point of Application newtons (KN; 1 KN = 1000 N)). The
Magnitude can be represented
2. Magnitude graphically by drawing a vector to
scale. Drawing the magnitude of these
3. Line of Action vectors accurately is the essence of
the method of Graphic Statics.
4. Sense
Line of Action
A force can be seen as a segment of
Elements of a Force an indefinitely long line. To each
Given a single force, one is interested force is associated a characteristic
in knowing all of the following: line, which is referred to as its line of
1. Point of Application action. A reference axis is used in
2. Magnitude order to describe the orientation of
this line. The Figure shows that a line
3. Line of Action
 of action can be described in terms of
angle and slope.Translation results
when a force attempts to move the
body along its line of action.
(Benjamin) If the line of action of a
force does not pass through the body,
then the force attempts to rotate the
body. This introduces the concept of
Moments which will be discussed
soon.

Sense
The sense of a force specifies the
direction (positive or negative) in
which the force moves along the line
of action. Graphically, the sense can
be represented by an arrowhead
pointing in the active direction. It is
important to always keep track of the
sense of forces and that the
convention used for attaching a given
sign remains consistent. The sense
and direction can be either a written
verbal description (i.e. down and to
the right, up and to the left, slightly up
and to the right ) or more
conveniently expressed in terms of
360 degrees (i.e. 112 degrees, 273
degrees, 87.5 degrees). In the later
case, one begins with zero and
increases clock-wise with the
direction of the arrowhead until 360 is
reached.