MECHANICS A

Course Code

MX 3023

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr C Lopez

Pre-requisites

MA 2507

Overview

• Air Resistance Revision of the basic ideas of Newtonian mechanics and application to particles moving under gravity.


• The effect of air resistance and the idea of terminal velocity.


• Oscillations The theory of oscillations of one-dimensional systems. Hooke's law for springs. Free vibrations, damped vibrations and forced vibrations. The concept of resonance.


• Momentum and Angular Momentum Definitions and basic concepts. Rate of change of angular momentum equals moment.


• Conservation laws. Motion under a central force. Newton's law of gravity.


• Energy and Potentials Force fields. Gradient of a scalar function. Consevative force fields and potentials.


• Consevation of energy.


• Applications.


• Inertial frames The basic ideas of inertial frames and a brief discussion of Galilean transformations.


• Systems of Particles Centre of mass, the motion of the centre of mass. Total angular momentum of a system
  of particles. Closed systems.


• Two body problem.


• Collisions Elementary theory. Conservation of momentum. Elastic collisions and conservation of energy.


• Simple applications.

Structure

5 one-hour lectures per fortnight and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (80%); in-course assessment (20%).

Resit: 1 two-hour examination (maximum of 100% resit and 80% resit with 20% in-course assessment).
Only marks gained on first sitting can be used for Honours classification.

Formative Assessment

Informal assessment of weekly homework through discussions in tutorials.

Feedback

In-course assignments will normally be marked within one week and feedback provided to students in tutorials.

Students will be invited to contact Course Coordinators for feedback on the final examination.