We spent some time on Oct. 10 and 12 discussing trusses (and the exam), and we introduced a piece of software called Arcade. This is a really cool and powerful tool for structural analysis and visualization. As you saw in class, it has lots of great intuitive features (color and thickness of line, deformed shapes, the bomb tool). You can use Arcade yourself to do homework, especially out of Ch.6. The tutorials embedded in the software are pretty useful, but if you get stuck just come see me. We can sit for 20 minutes and I bet we can get you up to speed on how to do truss modeling.
We used Arcade to examine zero force members, and in particular we looked at column buckling as motivation. The movies below show two column simulations (one with and one without a zero force member), and one truss simulation using the bomb tool in Arcade. The point here is that zero force members provide “stability” (i.e., resistance to buckling) even though they do not carry any load according to an equilibrium analysis. Have a look at the movies, and post questions or comments as they arise.
Video: A truss with multiple zero force members.: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Video: column buckling simulation (no ZFM): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Video: column with no buckling due to presence of ZFM: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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