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Squire Whipple
Truss Bridge
Build the simple span that launched the great age of iron bridge building.
Written by William Gurstelle
Gregory Hayes
and the
TIME: 12 HOURS
COST: $10$15
Like all mechanical, civil, and aerospace engineers, I learned how to analyze structures early in my engineering education. Determining the size and direction of compressive or tensile forces acting on each piece of a construction is called statics. With this basic bit of knowledge, we can figure out the right sizes, shapes, and thicknesses to use in building things.
In statics, we learn about architectural elements such as arches, beams, buttresses, trusses, and vaults. The truss is one of the most important, and its widely used in construction. In its simplest form, a truss is a rigid framework of bolted-together triangles. Triangles are inherently strong and stable, and structures made out of them are also strong, rigid, and lightweight.
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Brooklyn Bridge
MATERIALS
Brooklyn Bridge
Who rst gured out the truss? Its clear that the classical Greeks, for all their genius, knew little or nothing about building BROOKLYN Brooklyn Bridge Quebec Bridge BRIDGE with triangle trusses. The Romans dabbled, but examples of Roman structures that use trusses are few and far between. Whirlpool Bridge Medieval cathedral and church architects understood the technique empirically, if not scientically; in plenty of early European buildings, wooden triangular trusses hold up the roof. Still, the best-known use of trusses is in building bridges. For that, we can thank New York civil engineer Squire Whipple (18041888), who developed the rst scientic method for analyzing and designing trusses. In 1847, Whipple published A Work on Bridge Building, which revolutionized civil engineering. Brooklyn Quebec Bridge No longer would builders use rules Bridge of thumb to guess at how big to make a strut or girder. Because of Whipples work, they Whirlpool Bridge QUEBEC BRIDGE knew exactly. Whipple gured out how to analyze trusses with Navajo Bridge a graphical method of lining up force vectors that he called Whirlpool Bridge the polygon of forces. This allowed engineers to safely and economically design viable truss bridges without knowing even a bit of calculus or trigonometry. Whipples Bowstring Arch bridge, made with cast-iron trusses, became the standard for bridges over the Erie Canal. For his contributions, the Society of American Civil Engineers declared Whipple the father of American iron bridge building. Whipples book set off a boom in civil engineering. Soon, the great age of iron bridge building was in full swing. The triangle structure is obvious in the beautiful spans of the Navajo Bridge Navajo Bridge WHIRLPOOL BRIDGE Bridge over the Colorado River, theWhirlpool Whirlpool Rapids Bridge over Niagara Falls, and the Quebec Bridge over the St. Lawrence River. But hidden trusses are also important parts of suspension and cantilevered bridges like the Brooklyn Bridge.
James Burke
Craft sticks or tongue depressors, 6"0" (100) Bricks, standard, 2"3"8" (2) Balsa wood sheet, 1"4"16"
TOOLS
Utility knife Ruler Hot glue gun and glue Plate weights or concrete blocks (optional) for testing structure
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NAVAJO BRIDGE
makezine.com
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2. Build 2 trusses.
Begin by taping 7 gusset plates to your work surface as shown. Hot-glue the craft sticks to the gussets. Take care to make the glued connections neat, aligning the craft sticks to form tidy equilateral triangles (Figure B). Once the glue sets, ip over the truss and attach craft sticks to the other side in the same fashion, for double strength. Build a second truss in the same way (Figure C). The long top and bottom members of the truss are called chords. The slanted members that tie the chords together are webs. If you use Squire Whipples polygon of forces to analyze each member, youll nd that the greatest forces in your truss are in the top and bottom chords, at the center of the bridge. If you wish, attach an extra craft stick at those points for reinforcement.
1. Place the bricks 14" apart on the oor. 2. Place the ends of your bridge on the bricks (Figure E). 3. Load er up! You can use concrete blocks, barbell weights,
buckets of water, or anything else at and heavy (Figure F). Add weight slowly and incrementally, and keep ngers and toes away from the area underneath the bridge. Distributing the weight evenly will allow you to add more weight before the structure fails. 4. Its your bridge, so you can either add weight until it eventually fails, or paint and display it as proof of your engineering abilities.
William Gurstelle is a contributing editor of MAKE. The new and expanded edition of his book Backyard Ballistics is now available in the Maker Shed (makershed.com).
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