Customer Reviews

Engineering Mechanics: Statics And Dynamics (9th Edition)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am a professional engineer. I have been working for over 25 years in the metals fabrication field of Aerospace and Automotive.

I am appalled at the cost of this book and the number of editions it has gone through and not had the errors corrected!

I've reviewd 3 additional texts while in this course of study and found them to be superior in content and quality of explanation. I would not recommend this text to instructors.

First off, this book is definately overpriced. Putting that aside, it is a very good book on the subject and I've learned a lot from it. The only thing I would like to see is a solutions manual, because in many chapters three or four examples problems are worked out, and these are of great help.

This book is very well illustrated and has answers to problems ( numbers only) at the end of the book. Several examples are worked out in each section, a definate plus. As the book progresses, these sample problems increasingly fail to represent the problems in the section. The discussion are poor. Material is presented in short,brief, nearly bulleted lists. Little attempt at theoretical expansion is made, and then more problems are thrown at you. For the average student who really doesn't care about learning only getting grade, this book will work out fine. If you are more serious about learning, look for another book. I am. The examples and illustrations alone are worth buying the book if you can find a used copy at low cost somewhere.

I had a very poor teacher, without this book and it's great examples I'm not so sure I would have even passed the class. I can honestly say I've learded the most from this one book than all of my other engineering coursed so far. I definately learned more from the book than I did from the instructor.

I should preface this by saying that I am not a mechanical engineer. There may be important conventions for mechanical engineers illustrated in this book, but that I would not know.

It is better to think of this book not as a textbook but as a set of problems with some solutions. The "text" of this textbook is so poorly written that it is better treated as pointers to sections of your math or physics books you may need to review. The material and problems is not difficult, just poorly explained.

The author is sloppy with notation throughout the book, particularly the section on dynamics. It is not unusual for new notation to be introduced -- unexplained -- in an example or problem.

On that point, most books of this type contain answers to the odd numbered problems. This book is no different (and contains answers to some even ones as well) but is particularly fanatical about keeping this section's page count down. It is common for textbooks to avoid printing a graph for a problem that requires one and instead just list the equation. This book takes that one step farther and sometimes omits the equation in favor of a handful of arbitrary points. This is particularly ridiculous because (like most recent textbooks) the "text" is obstructed by an irrelevant parade of pictures and colored boxes (complete with drop shadows!).

My understand is that this series is infamous for containing many errors. The 9th edition had an egregious error in the first chapter on the SI system, for example. I noticed few outright errors (and on a second look most of those were just sloppiness) in this edition, but be warned.

Between the poor text, gratuitous drop-shadows, and general lack of care for the reader this book looks like it was printed for no reason other than killing the secondary market for the 10th edition.

I'm an engineering student currently going to school in Utah. This book is one of the worst I've used. The sections give hardly any explantation on the subjects they are trying to teach. The examples have hardly any relevancy to the problems. Some of the equations in the front cover are wrong. And the answers in the back of the book are wrong quite often.

My biggest complaint is with the actual sections. They do little more than offer proofs for the equations that go with the new material, then send you on your merry way. All fine and dandy, but I'd like a little more explanation given, such as when I can't use an equation given some circumstances. I've wasted many, many hours on problems because the equations I've used were the wrong ones to use.

If you have to use this book, get the solutions manual. It will save you a lot of time and stress.

This book does a fairly good job of explaining basic dynamics and statics. The main problem, however, is that the statics portion of the book includes much clearer examples that relate to the problems at the end of each chapter. In the dynamics section, most of the examples are simple, and less easily understood. The best way to learn the material is not by using the book, but by having a good instructor, especially when doing dynamics. I'd recommend this book, despite it's high price.

This is the best book I have used in any engineering class. The text is clear and well-written, not long-winded or confusing. The book also contains many examples of each principle, fully worked out, along with a huge number of problems with the answers provided. This is a superb introductory test to mechanics.

This is an excellent book for Statics and Dynamics. The chapters have many examples that cover every concept that is in the chapter. On top of that, the problems are easy to understand and realistic, with most of the answers in the back except a select few. The problems were created using the material in the chapter, so it is useful to read the chapter, attempt the problem, and go back to the section and read it again, and you will 95% of the time understand.

I've used Hibbeler's texts in my Engineering Mechanics class for the past 10 years...and even used the text way back in 2nd edition when I took the class. It's the best...best explanations, best problem sets, great diagrams.