Week 8 - Analysis Process

Method of joints is a way to calculate the unknown forces in a truss bridge. It is of course a nice way to help us understand how to analyze the different forces acting upon a bridge, but it would not be sufficient for a real bridge. When calculating the forces, we only included the force of gravity and the force of each members of the bridge. In real life, there are many other forces coming from different directions that could impact the stableness of the bridge as a whole. Some example of these forces would be wind, earthquake, car loads, and the bridge itself. In addition to the method of joints, I would also like to analyze on the forces produced by different lengths members and the difference between using different connectors. I think that online Bridge Designer and WPBD might be useful tools to analyze the different forces.

Last week in class, we were introduced to “method of joints”—a way to calculate the tension and compression forces in a truss bridge. With the calculated values, hopefully we can improve our bridge design in the near future. Other than that, we were also taught using online Bridge Designer to calculate the tension and compression forces created by each member of the bridge. This week in class, we will be working on more analysis and start our new design. This new bridge will be a span over 36’’ along with new constraints.