Engineering balance : the conceptual approach

This work presents a view of balance useful for mechanical engineers. Mechanical engineers often need to make quick intelligent decisions using conceptual and physical understanding. The typical mechanical engineering instruction usually provides a good basis for "back of the envelope" calculations, especially for mechanical systems; however, one exception to this case is in the field of dynamics and control. Dynamics and control is generally taught with much math, modelling most systems with differential equations. Although math is useful for designing control systems, when designing products for people who act as sophisticated controllers the engineer needs a more general understanding of balance. This work presents a conceptual intuitive way to break the act of balance into distinct mechanisms and thereby quickly evaluate how a system balances.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Abbott, Jonathan E.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Anette (Peko) Hosoi.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/89875

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/89875