ABSTRACT
As shown in the last paragraph, the principle of virtual work allows one to determine either positions of static equilibrium or conditions of kinematic equilibrium for a system of N material points (particles). So, this principle offers possibility of solving a statics problem emerging from the original dynamical one (at least, principially) by means of another very important principle - the D’Alembert principle. As we shall see, this can be done by the help of force of inertia concept. Therefore, a dynamical problem can be replaced by a statics one on the real space of motion only [the space of position vectors ~ri (i = 1, N)], and working only in a non-inertial frame. Besides, this method proves to be useful only as a first step, since - as we shall see - the result is finally obtained by solving a dynamical problem, but this time in the so-called ”configuration space”. In this space, solution to the problem is obtained in an easier way. It is to be mentioned that the problem is considerably simplified by the existence of constraints (the number of second order differential equations is diminished by 2l, where l is the number of constraints).
