Books by James Dally

This book an "Introduction to Dynamics" is intended to be used by sophomore or junior students after they have taken Statics and possibly Mechanics of Materials. Comparing the content of Dynamics to that of Statics shows that Dynamics is a much more difficult course. Dynamics requires students to use mathematical tools that include: Vector cross and dot products, Vector algebra, Law of sines and law of cosines, Chain and product rules of differentiation, Differentiation and integration of elementary functions, Area integrals of simple functions, Calculus and algebra in Cartesian, tangential and cylindrical coordinates.In addition Dynamics includes many different concepts involving energy, momentum and impulse, including conservation of all three of these quantities. The student must learn to solve for linear and angular velocities and accelerations in three different coordinate systems. All in all Dynamics is a challenging course for students to master and a challenging course for instructors to effectively teach.Dynamics is divided into two different topics; kinematics and kinetics. Kinematics only involves the geometry of the path of an object, which may be a particle or a two or three dimensional rigid body. Forces are not involved in kinematic analyzes. Kinematics deals with the motion of bodies without regard to the forces that are required to produce that motion. The student will use differential and integral calculus in solving kinematics problems.Kinetics is more complex, because the student must consider the forces acting on the particle or rigid body and use Newton's second law to determine its acceleration, velocity and position. In addition concepts such as energy, momentum, impulse and conservation of these quantities are employed to solve certain types of problems.This book differs in that chapters 2 through 9 open with a concept problem to encourage the student's thought processes before introducing them to a multitude of equations. We believe the students with background in Physics courses and early Mechanics courses will be able to follow these basic concept problems prior to the introduction of the basic equations required for their solution. The concept problems are followed by non-technical discussion dealing with the topic upon which the concept problem is based. The technical discussions deal with current events that are related to the technical content in the chapter and are intended to couple the course content with real life. The book has an introductory chapter and three Chapters that cover the kinematics of particle and rigid body motion. The book has five Chapters that cover the kinetics of particle and rigid body motion.

The textbook is used to support students for two quarters involving two related projects involving a quadcopter. Some of the material may be covered in lecture, recitation or in a computer laboratory or a model shop. Additional material is covered with reading assignments. In other instances, the students use the text as a reference document for independent study. Exercises, provided at the end of each chapter, may be used for assignments when the demands of the project on the students' time are not excessive.The book contains 20 chapters that cover many of the topics that first year engineering students should begin to understand. To facilitate referencing the various chapters we have divided the textbook into three parts: Part I includes eight chapters that contains most of the technical content required for the students in the fall quarter. We have included Chapter 7 on Team Development because student design teams often have difficulty functioning smoothly. We have also included Chapter 8 on the Engineering Profession that provides information to support the presentations of the representatives from the College's Engineering Departments.Part II contains the content for the fall quarter, during which the students are assigned an autonomous cargo delivery mission. In addition to the mission oriented content, we have added Chapter 11 on 3D Printing and Chapters 12 and 13 on Portfolio Design.Finally Part III includes seven chapters that contain content often covered in more traditional Introduction to Engineering courses. We recommend that students refer to these chapters, as they consider a career in Engineering. Of particular importance is Chapter 14 titled A Student Survival Guide, which provides a systematic approach to successfully completing your engineering studies. We also strongly recommend that you read Chapter 18 on Ethics, which is focused on issues that arise in engineering.