TRUSSES:

STRUCTURES FOR INNOVATION IN THE BRANCH OF ENGINEERING

Introduction
The objective of this essay is to present the history of the static trusses along with its
different types and characteristics, said the previous thing, we will begin defining what it
is a truss. A truss is a structure that consists of two-force members only, where members
are organized so that the assemblage as a whole behaves as a single object. When forces
tend to pull the member apart, it is in tension. When the forces tend to compress the
member, it is in compression.
As we mentioned before, a truss is a type of structure and the basic function of
any kind structure is to support loads. These arise in a variety of ways and depend,
generally upon the purpose for which the structure has been built.
The construction of trusses is one of the oldest branches or specialties of
engineering, going to fix us approximately in the year 500 a.C, a perfect example of this,
are the first trusses made of stone by the greeks. It should be noted that at this time, the
structures were made by intuition or a code named “good practices”, which did not have
a calculation and were very prone to deformation.
Between 1452 and 1519, emerged a character well known, Leonardo Da Vinci, he
was the one who for the first time begins to establish why a truss is a truss, and how is
the equilibrium is used within the static. Here attempts of calculations are born in the
trusses, among them the moment of a force. After him, Galileo Galilei continued Da
Vinci’s studies, completely establishing the moment of a force and the introduction of the
solid structures deformation.
The first “scientific” analysis of truss was realized in 1847 by Squire Whipple, a
north american bridge constructor from the city of Utica, N.Y. He wrote a A work in
bridge building, which was the first publication in modern history to discuss the analysis
and construction of bridges.
In 1850 D.Jourawski, a Russian railway engineer, created the method of solving
the joints, by which are obtained the efforts in the members, considering the equilibrium
conditions of each node at the same time. However this was not known, until the German
railway engineer Kart Culmann, professor of the Zurich Polytechnic, published it
independently a few years later in 1866.
 Continuing in 1854 Albert Fink design and patented a truss, was popular with the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The Appomattox High Bridge on the Norfolk and Western
Railway It consists of several divided beams, which form subdivisions in a triangular

shape through which the loads are dispersed, traversed by a beam in the middle. There
are many ways of arranging and subdividing the chords and internal members.This type
of truss is commonly used to construct roofs in houses.
In 1862 the German engineer A. Ritter, proposed another analytical method: the
method of the sections. Ritter cut the truss and replaced the internal forces with
equivalent external forces, by summing the moments at convenient points, and all
internal forces can be obtained.

Body
For a two-dimensional structure to be a plane truss, it must have the following
characteristics. First, all members must be connected to one another by frictionless pins,
and the locations of these pins are called joints. Secondly, each member may have no
more than two joints. Third, forces may be applied at joints only. Finally, the weight of
individual members must be negligible.
If all of the above characteristics are satisfied, then it is guaranteed that all
members of the structure are two-force members is that equilibrium analysis of the
structure reduces to equilibrium analysis of a system of particles where the number of
particles equals the number of joints in the truss. Now, there are some of the most
familiar structures, keeping in mind that it is only a graphic representation of these, since
they exclude the external forces acting on them and, in turn, the way to join them, that is,
their joints.
The Pratt Truss, was invented in 1844 by Thomas and Caleb Pratt. Includes
vertical members and diagonals that slope down towards the center, the opposite of the
Howe truss.The interior diagonals are under tension under balanced loading and vertical
elements under compression.
 The Howe Truss, patented in 1840 by Massachusetts millwright William Howe,
includes vertical members and diagonals that slope up towards the center, the opposite of
the Pratt truss. In contrast to the Pratt truss, the diagonal web members are in
compression and the vertical web members are in tension. Examples include Jay Bridge
in Jay, New York, and Sandy Creek Covered Bridge in Jefferson County, Missouri.

The Warren Truss is a truss with parallel chords between which the braces and
ties are set at the same angle so as to form a series of isosceles triangles, the diagonals of
which are alternately either in tension or compression.

The K-Truss, it’s a truss in the form of a K due to the orientation of the vertical
member and two oblique members in each panel. An example is the Südbrücke rail
bridge over the River Rhine Mainz, Germany.

The King Post Truss, a king post (or king-post or kingpost) is a central vertical
post used in architectural or bridge designs, working in tension to support a beam below
from a truss apex above (whereas a crown post, though visually similar, supports items
above from the beam below).This is represented with:
 The Queen Post Truss, ss a tension member in a truss that can span longer
openings than a king post truss. A king post uses one central supporting post, whereas the
queen post truss uses two.

The most used trusses for the construction of road bridges or railways are of the
type Pratt, Warren and K truss. And for roof covers are Fink, Pratt, Howe and Warren.

As mentioned before, the trusses loaded by downward forces, the members along
the top are in compression and the members along the bottom are in tension. The
members connecting the top and bottom chords may be tension or compression,
depending on their angles and the distribution of the loads.

The forces in the members can be calculated in several ways. The traditional “by
hand” methods are method of joints and the method of sections.

Application and Uses of Truss

The most common uses of trusses are in buildings and constructions. They are
used extensively in the commercial, residential, agricultural, and institutional
construction. The higher strength-to-weight of these provide greater flexibility and longer
spans in the layouts of a floor plan.
Also, nowadays there are representative trusses in any place, we can see them in a
local, national or international territory. The local representative structures are the bridges
that are around the entire city, also the builds the structure or the base that they have is
made of a truss that would make the building to stay stand up and don’t collapse.
Specifically, in Puebla there are bridges built by the government. José Alfredo Vega
Herrera, president of the group of business builders, talks about some of the bridges built
during Moreno Valle's government.

For the international representative structures we can see a really famous one, that
is the golden gate that show to us the use of truss in order to make a bridge, other really
important structures that use truss are the Tower bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, Sydney
Harbour Bridge.
Talking about the Golden Gate Bridge, it was also at the time of its completion in
1937 the longest suspension bridge, and it remained so for 27 years. Joseph Strauss is
credited as the visionary and leading engineer of this project.
Analyzing it we can see that this bridge is conformed by the typical mixture
between the Pratt and the Howe Truss, in this way they manage to maintain balance in
both directions, taking into account the different factors, such as vehicular traffic, air
currents, possible earthquakes, etc.
Conclusion
In general, exits different types of trusses, that definitely have some
characteristics that differentiate one from the other, but the thing is that they share a
great similarity, this means that in all trusses, they are a coincidence in the union by
straight elements, and finally they will form points, or as we know now called joints, in
this which is the force of each of the loads of the structure that is specifically being
analyzed.
We can resume that any truss will have joints that allow you to reach to the
structural solution, to learn to identify them, and to get to that, we define their
classification. As we define before, there are simple, compound, complex that exists.
And having in consideration the classification, you can identify easier each of the types
of trusses that exists, to mention some, Pratt, Warren, Fink, Howe, etc.
And the importance of stablish or building works/projects it is of great interest in
the production environment, or even can be used for other applications such as rural
constructions, wineries, markets, and not only in bridges.
In addition, trusses gives us security in our facilities and allow a better
management of the resources, which are required to carry out the production process.

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