Staquet Weekly Blog - Week 8

In the lab last week we were introduced to the "Method of Joints" which we made use of in completion of the A-3 assignment.  As a group, we also went over some ideas for the design of our 36" bridge that we will be working on in the coming lab.  We agreed that we will continue to brainstorm ideas and hopefully have a completed bridge by the end of this week's class.

Clearly this single method of analysis, the "Method of Joints," is not sufficient for a real bridge for numerous reasons.  A real bridge would have to be tested and analyzed in many more ways than just a single downward force on a single connection joint, and the bridge design itself would never be so simple.  A real bridge needs to not only hold its own weight but also has to deal with dynamic loads and things like side pushing from the side and even up drafts from underneath.  Also, a real bridge would be composed of two sides that would have to have some type of lateral connection that, in the end, would play a large roll in the behavior of the bridge.  I am not saying that the "Method of Joints" is not used at all, because I believe it is, but It would be done on a much more advanced level and have to take some of the earlier mentioned aspects into account.  This method would only be one of many that are used to analyze bridges and in my mind would not be enough for a real bridge.  The only thing I would like to further analyze would be the exact failure point of the K'Nex gussets when they are experiencing tension forces.  This information could be gathered using an automated stress analyzer that would give a readout of the amount of force that caused the K'Nex to fail.  This could then be taken into account when building the new 36" bridge that we will be designing and building.