Truss Us

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  Truss_Example

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Inspiration

As a group of mechanical engineers we know that when calculating the internal forces of static trusses, the hardest part is keeping the signs correct. If students are comfortable determining if a beam is in compression and tension by just looking at the structure, then they will be able to double check their signs and just change if needed.

What it does

Truss Us builds virtual truss members and calculates the internal reaction forces along with the reaction forces on the pins and rollers. It then displays the trusses, forces, and pins and rollers. The plot allows students to get used to seeing how to find if the member is in tension or compression because the members in tension are in blue and the members in compression are in red.

How we built it

We build our code using replit so that we could work on the code simultaneously. We started with getting all the inputs. We then wrote a generic code to solve the reaction forces at the pins and rollers. Then found the reaction forces at each node. We then displayed the truss system to show the tension and compression.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge was finding a generic mathematical relation to find the reaction forces at any node no matter the truss that had been built. In classes they teach us to first look at the truss and choose the node with the most knowns then individually compute the forces at each node moving away from the original node. For our project we created a matrix to solve for the resultants at all the nodes at once. Problems raised when organizing the matrix so that it corresponded to our other matrixes and arrays so that we could solve for the reaction nots.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We feel accomplished to build a calculator for any truss. Not only did we come up with the generic version of the math to solve any truss but also implemented it with a code that most of our members did not know before starting and the third member had little practice using it.

What we learned

Two of our members learned python for the first time and this was the second ever code the third member had written in python. Along with learning python we gained an in depth knowledge of the math behind trusses.

What's next for Truss Us

Creating a section to allow cross sections to be applied to the beams so that finite element analysis could be applied to the truss. This would be used to teach higher level students such as seniors or graduate students.

Built With

• python
• replit