Engineering Mechanics

Forces before anything else

This 37-lecture NPTEL course from IIT Madras starts with the basics of engineering mechanics and then works through force systems and the equilibrium of rigid bodies. It is a structured route into the static analysis that most mechanical and civil curricula begin with.

Structures and energy methods

The middle of the course is devoted to trusses and beams, where the lectures show how loads are carried through a structure and how support reactions follow from equilibrium. The closing sessions introduce virtual work, a method that uses small imagined displacements to find unknown forces.

Who it suits

• Students taking a first course in statics who want more worked method than a textbook offers.
• Learners revisiting trusses and beams before a design or structures course.
• Anyone who found the idea of virtual work hard to grasp from notes alone.