| Zn | (english) Chemical symbol for Zinc |
| Zr | (english) Chemical symbol for Zirconium |
| Acceleration: | (english) A vector quantity equal to the rate that velocity changes with time. |
| Axial force: | (english) A system of internal forces whose resultant is a force acting along the longitudinal axis of a structural member or assembly. |
| Bending moment: | (english) A system of internal forces whose resultant is a moment. This term is most commonly used to refer to internal forces in beams. |
| Body force: | (english) An external force acting throughout the mass of a body. Gravity is a body force. An inertial force is a body force. |
| Brittle: | (english) A brittle structure or material exhibits low ductility, meaning that it exhibits very little inelastic deformation before complete failure. |
| Center of Gravity (CG): | (english) The location of the resultant of gravity forces on an object or objects: sometimes called center of mass. |
| Centroid: | (english) Similar to the concept of center of gravity, except that it applies to a two dimensional shape rather than an object. For a given shape, the centroid location corresponds to the center of gravity for a thin flat plate of that shape, made from a homogeneous material. |
| Component (of a vector): | (english) Any vector can be expressed as a collection of vectors whose sum is equal to the original vector. Each vector in this collection is a component of the original vector. It is common to express a vector in terms of components which are parallel to the x and y axes. |