LAP 2 of structural Engineering

20Aug09

Lap 2 starts out by describing that an axial strucutre force is force the acts in a direction parallel to the axis of the structural element. One of the main reasons structures fail is that it cannot withstand the axial forces imposed upon it. Tension and compression are the two varieties of axial forces. Tension is a pulling force that increase the length of the structural element. Compression is apushing force that reduces the length of the structural element. In objective 3, a force vector is defined as a quantitiy that has both magnitude and direction.

In the next objective, force vectors are combined to create a resultant vector. There is usually more than one force acting on a structure at any given moment, so it is important to find the resultant vector to determine which direction the force is acting in and how strong that force is. There are four basic steps to calculate the resultant vector. The first is the determine the x and y coordinates for each vector. Then, the x coordinates are added as well as the y coordinates. Now, the magnitude is calculated using the Pythagorean Theorem. The last step is the find the angle of the vector using triginometry. I did not find this to be too difficult, but many other students who have taken this module have said the triginometry is difficult.

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