Greenwood - Week 8

At this point we have discovered force in truss members using the Joint Method form of analysis.  It was an easy enough approach to the problem of force in long members on real bridges, and I believe it can be applied into real applications.  For example our Knex bridge can and should be analyzed mathematically before we attempt to apply any extraneous weight to it.  Actual engineers use math as a tool everyday to make sure their ideas can come to life, and we are no different.  Safety, usefulness, and financial awareness are all issues which can be addressed using simple math and physics.  If a bridge breaks due to a problem that could have been foreseen using a pencil and paper, there is no excuse for this laziness.
Down the line I believe I would like to analyze some of the factors which contribute to the swaying of the bridges we have seen in lab.  It obviously is an issue with the joints of the trusses, but there must be a way to look at these problems on paper before we apply them in lab.  It seems that Knex joints are not very strong, but that should not matter with a proper design.  This week and next week our group will be working hard to look at our bridge very closely to analyze any problem we may foresee.

Week 8- Jordan Banyas

For the project we are doing in this class, the truss analysis information is very helpful. The truss analysis we were taught deal with static forces which is similar to what our goal is in the bridge building competition. However, for a real bridge these calculations would not be very helpful because the forces would be dynamic as opposed to static. We would have to learn a whole new method of calculations to keep up with the force enacted by a moving vehicle. At this point in the term I believe we have learned all that we need to be successful in this project. Now it just becomes a matter of putting all of our knowledge into action. This week we tinkered with out bridge a little bit more and believe we finally have a successful idea. We will further execute this idea throughout the week so we are ready for the final competition in week nine.

A3-Jordan Banyas

After doing the calculations for a bridge with a height of 6 inches, length of 24 inches, with a weight of ten pounds imposed on it. The calculations are shown in the picture below. This applies to our project in that the sides of our bridge are very similar to the bridge we calculated. Although we have not figured out the exact dimensions of it yet, we can now accurately calculate what dimensions will give us the best results.

Week 7- Carr

Last week in lab we tested one of our bridge designs and it performed fine yet we are striving for something more.  We, as a group, would love to see our bridge shatter the previous weight test.  Because of this, we went back to the drawing board and designed a new type of truss.  We fell confident about how it will perform and can't wait to test it.  Some data would be extremely helpful in our design process.  The forces exerted on each member or plate would greatly aid us in determining how to better disperse forces.  If we were to take this in our own hands we would change the weight into newtons and break up the forces into different directions.  We would use sine and cosine  to find the partial forces in different directions and mathematically design a strong truss.

Jordan Banyas week 7 post

This week we reconstructed our bridge based on the results of last week's weigh in. Our bridge held a disheartening 17.4 pounds of compression on our bridge, however we are confident we can fix the problems. Learning about how to calculate the force exerted on our outer trusses would be very useful information. Right now, based on our knowledge of the summation of forces and that each angle is at a forty-five degree angle, we can have a basic understanding as to how the forces are dispersed. By taking the cosine or sine of fourty-five and setting it equal to the amount of weight exerted on the bridge, we can successfully calculate how much force each member we will hold. The only question is how much force will it take to break our design?

kevin carr week 6

This week we worked on our Kinex bridge.  We have a strong design but fell short on pieces.  We will continue to build and improve our bridge design. We will test it today in class and improve our weak points.

Jordan banyas week 6

This week we think we have a very promising bridge design. We dropped our old idea and added cross sections to the top of our bridge to stop it from swaying when force is acted upon it. We look forward to testing the new bridge this week. This weeks goals will consist of finding our bridges less attractive points and polishing them up before we test it again.