Customer Reviews

Schaum's Outline of Engineering Mechanics

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I used this outline for review and with some problems I was having in a course on computational robotics I was taking a couple of years ago and I found this book to be an excellent review that answered all of my questions. However, my stepson used it in his statics and dynamics classes to help with the material when it was being presented to him for the first time, and he said he felt it brushed over some of the material in both classes. Even though this is a hefty outline, perhaps it would be better if they dedicated separate Schaum's outlines to each subject - statics and dynamics - and covered more ground in each subject rather than putting both subjects in the same book. This outline even has one chapter on mechanical vibrations, but it is just barely an overview and hardly gets into the subject at all. It might be best if that chapter were deleted entirely and more space spent on the subjects at hand.

I wholeheartedly recommend this treatise on statics anddynamics, one which I am surprised has not been nominated for aPulitzer Prize. The explanations of the concepts are impeccable, butbuy this book for the cool Venn Diagrams that illustrate most pages.

Of course, one should expect this book to be of high quality, as one of its authors is Dr. Charles Best. Dr. Best is famous for having taught in the Engineering Department at Lafayette College for decades, chairing its Bachelor of Arts in Engineering degree program.

I have always liked the Schaum's series of books. They are straightforward and to the point. This text was no exception.

The most important aspect of this book is that it can be used as a supplement to most of the popular texts. I used it along with Beer & Johnston and Shames.

Quite a useful book on a difficult, hands-on subject.

I have always liked the Schaum's series of books. They are straightforward and to the point. This text was no exception.

The most important aspect of this book is that it can be used as a supplement to most of the popular texts. I used it along with Beer & Johnston and Shames.

Quite a useful book on a difficult, hands-on subject.

This work presents a wide sampling of solved problems and problems to solve. These include problems related to vectors, beams, trusses, friction (including that on inclined surfaces), virtual work, dynamics of a particle, moments of inertia, mechanical vibrations, and much more.

I only wish that there was an accompanying manual of solved problems for the problems which are not solved in this book. If such a solutions manual exists, please write a comment about it under this review.

I have had Statics and will be taking Dynamic's next semester. I bought this book so I could get a head start on next semester as I heard the professor is tough and the material is difficult.

The parts that cover Statics were a very good supliment to what I had learned last semester. Kind of like the Reader's Digest version, I couldn't figure out what parts they had left out. It seemed pretty complete to me. They even covered stuff we didn't. We didn't have anything in our class wrt differential equations, but this book did. Since I have had diff eq, it was nice to see it being put to use and I learned something.

On the Dynamic's side, it is a bit of a tough go. I am using this as a primary/only text and do not have the benifit of an instructor. I am wading through slowly. I wish there was a bit more explination before the examples. This is where an in class text book would be helpful. I believe that this book will be a valuable resource when I actually start the class.

This book was helpful in putting together arguments for problems I was working on.