Free online courseEngineering Dynamics

Course Description

Engineering dynamics is the bridge between theory and real moving machines. This free online course helps you build the intuition and problem-solving habits needed to analyze motion, forces, and energy in mechanical and industrial systems—skills used in design, automation, reliability, robotics, and product development.

You will learn how to describe motion accurately, choose useful reference frames, and translate physical situations into clear equations. Along the way, you’ll develop confidence with Newton’s laws, impulse and momentum, torque and angular momentum, and the behaviors that appear when systems rotate. Instead of treating rotating frames as a confusing exception, you’ll learn to recognize when effects like Coriolis acceleration matter and how to reason about apparent forces without losing the underlying physics.

The course also strengthens foundational engineering workflow: drawing free-body diagrams that actually guide the solution, identifying degrees of freedom, and selecting the right approach for each problem. You will see how these decisions simplify complex scenarios, especially for rigid-body motion and systems with constraints, where the choice of coordinates can make the difference between a messy derivation and a clean result.

As you progress, you will connect dynamics to modern modeling techniques, including Lagrange’s equations and generalized forces—tools that are widely used in simulation, controls, and multibody analysis. Finally, you’ll build a practical understanding of mechanical vibration: single and multi-degree-of-freedom oscillators, natural frequencies, vibration isolation, and modal concepts such as orthogonality and system response. With integrated questions and exercises, you’ll practice turning concepts into results so you can apply what you learn to engineering coursework and real projects.