A3: Truss Analysis - Corey Duane

These are the calculations performed to determine the forces in the truss members of a bridge that has a height of 6", a span of 24", and a load of 10 pounds.

This table shows the member-to-member forces, a positive number means tension and a negative means compression.

This figure shows the screen capture of the bridge designer for the above analysis.

    To make the results of the hand analysis correspond to online Bridge Designer, you must design it to scale.  If the angles are different, then the calculated forces will not be the same so it is important to make sure that the size of each member on Bridge Designer is to scale with the members of the hand analysis.
    This type of analysis is very helpful and can be used with our Knex designs.  By using the measurements of our design, we can determine the forces and modify the design accordingly.