Bridge Design Project

Good Luck.

I quit doing homework a long time ago. And I never did it for other prople.

I'm pretty sure the material was covered in class and this is your opportunity to gain experience with that taught material. The first few hits on Google should give you pictures of different truss bridges. If you don't know what to do then pick the third picture you find from Google (the "Pick C" method, "C" is the third letter of the alphabet). You have been given your loads and forces. This gives you a good starting point.

I'm not sure, but I think that my statics professor was from Malta. He was only a little crazy. I guess we are even now.

Perhaps the "crazy statics lecturer" wants you to draw it in 3 views first?

Go over your lecture notes and study your textbook.

The exercise is to get you to learn how to solve the problem by first principles.

Welcome to engineering, we're all crazy that way.

Vince

i believe you were taught

Bending moment diagram

Shear force diagram

The time is now for you to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and actually learn how to do it yourself....crack open your assigned text book and class notes and learn it the right way. There's no substitute to actual hard core learning and you should stop relying on others to do your homework for you, otherwise you're just fooling yourself.

I don't think your teacher/professor is crazy in the least. He's there to teach you the fundamentals so that you become a successful engineer in the future.

I didn't rely on anyone doing my homework and didn't help anyone else for that matter, except as a tutor for underclassmen.

Like others before have said, nows the time to belly up to the bar and get it done. As far as excel goes you will be able to write your own program once you master the subject at hand.

Good Learning and have fun with the assignment.

It appears that you are looking for some sort of software which will automatically do the work for you and give you a final answer. This implies that you have neither interest in actually determining a solution to the problem nor any interest in really becoming an engineer. I have, on occasion, had my seven-year-old daughter help me with data entry into software to aid in system analysis; this hardly makes her an engineer. Please realize that computer programs are just one of many tools you will use in your career to help you in design/analysis. It should in no way be seen as a substitute for understanding the fundamental science and mathematics that describe or predict the behavior of a system.

It also appears that you might know how to do this by hand since you mention method of joints and method of sections. I can't help but imagine that had you committed as much time to employing these methods as you have trying to find an alternate, you would have already had your solution.

Just my observation; take it or leave it.

If you want to solve this in a matrix I would sugest getting a book on the behavior of structures. The way you set up the matrix and finding the transpose and invert is more time consuming then the methode of sections. If youhave MathCAD then you will only have to set it up once. It is certainly too complex to explain in a blog.

Why not use the methods of joints or sections?

The other method that I learned, way back BC (before computers) was a graphical solution.

I found an example here. It also shows how to handle the distributed loads.

I think the Corp of Engineers may have all the Master builders designs in Archives,in archives because they are still standing after hundreds of years.

There are studies of Ancient bridges even mentioned on the BBC or the videos of Travels with Steve through Europe, that are not only Phenomenal in design but look stunning and attractive as well.

LynLynch it's joking.

He would love to help you with your homework.... just ask him politely.

Thank you all for your replays,

I think I managed to find a good solution. I again need to see with her if it is a good viable solution.

Again thanks to you all