Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Free body diagram
Summary
In physics and engineering, a free body diagram (FBD; also called a force diagram) is a graphical illustration used to visualize the applied forces, moments, and resulting reactions on a body in a given condition. It depicts a body or connected bodies with all the applied forces and moments, and reactions, which act on the body(ies). The body may consist of multiple internal members (such as a truss), or be a compact body (such as a beam). A series of free bodies and other diagrams may be necessary to solve complex problems.
Free body diagrams are used to visualize forces and moments applied to a body and to calculate reactions in mechanics problems. These diagrams are frequently used both to determine the loading of individual structural components and to calculate internal forces within a structure. They are used by most engineering disciplines from Biomechanics to Structural Engineering.
In the educational environment, a free body diagram is an important step in understanding certain topics, such as statics, dynamics and other forms of classical mechanics.
A free body diagram is not a scaled drawing, it is a diagram. The symbols used in a free body diagram depends upon how a body is modeled.
Free body diagrams consist of:
A simplified version of the body (often a dot or a box)
Forces shown as straight arrows pointing in the direction they act on the body
Moments are shown as curves with an arrow head or a vector with two arrow heads pointing in the direction they act on the body
One or more reference coordinate systems
By convention, reactions to applied forces are shown with hash marks through the stem of the vector
The number of forces and moments shown depends upon the specific problem and the assumptions made. Common assumptions are neglecting air resistance and friction and assuming rigid body action.
In statics all forces and moments must balance to zero; the physical interpretation is that if they do not, the body is accelerating and the principles of statics do not apply.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.