Tag

mechanics

13 entries tagged mechanics.

Engineering & Machines

Car Suspension BasicsA car suspension has two jobs that fight each other: keep the tires in useful contact with the road while isolating the body from bumps and wheel motion.
Differential GearsWhen a car turns, the outside driven wheel travels a longer arc than the inside wheel, so it must rotate faster. A differential lets the two axle shafts turn at different speeds while both are driven by one input.
Four-Stroke Engine CycleA fourstroke piston engine completes one thermodynamic/mechanical cycle in four piston strokes and two crankshaft revolutions:

Classical Mechanics: The MapPhysics becomes much easier once the formulas stop looking like unrelated tricks.
Fluids: Pressure, Buoyancy, and FlowA fluid cannot sustain a static shear stress the way a rigid solid can. It deforms and flows.
Forces and Newton's LawsKinematics says how motion changes. Dynamics asks why.
From AP Physics 1 to Physics C Mechanics: What Calculus AddsAP Physics 1 and AP Physics C: Mechanics describe largely the same classicalmechanics world.
Kinematics: Position, Velocity, and AccelerationKinematics describes motion without yet asking what causes it.
Linear Momentum, Impulse, and CollisionsMomentum becomes especially powerful when forces are large, complicated, and shortlived — collisions, explosions, catches, impacts.
Oscillations and Simple Harmonic MotionMany systems displaced from a stable equilibrium experience a force pushing them back toward it.
Rotational Energy and Angular MomentumRotation has close analogues of the energy and momentum ideas used for translation.
Torque and Rotational DynamicsA force can change an object's translational motion. But for an extended object, where the force acts also matters.
Work, Energy, and PowerForce is a local description: what interaction acts right now?