Truss Bridge Research Paper

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In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assemblage as a whole behaves as a single object" (Costanzo, 2013). Trusses have been used in various applications like building bridges, roofs, etc. since 1800s. Before 1800, nearly all bridges and roof supports were made of stone arches. Bridges and roofs made out of stone arches are effective but very costly to build. Furthermore, stone arches are strong structures but they have limitations. When a lot of force is applied beyond the maximum force that the arch can withstand, the lines of force move outside of the arch rather than being carried along the arch into its supports, which, in this case, the arch fails, and…show more content…
Lattice truss bridge is a form of truss bridge that uses a large number of small and closely spaced diagonal elements that form a lattice and was patented by architect Ithiel Town in 1820 and 1835 as Town's lattice truss (Wikipedia contributors, 2014). Trusses can be found in many of the modern structures and buildings that are being built today. There are two basic types of trusses: parallel chord truss (also known as flat truss) and pitched truss (also known as common truss). When these two aforementioned types of trusses are used together, the combination is known as truncated truss. In order for the trusses to be statically determinate and stable, it should be made entirely out of triangles whose ends are connected at joints, commonly called as nodes. In this case, external forces and its equal and opposite reactions to those forces are generally considered to be acted only at the nodes. The resultant forces are, therefore, either compressive or tensile forces. In mathematical terms, we have the following equation to verify the stability of the

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