Structural Engineering & Statics
where the load goes
Concept

Equilibrium matrix — where it appears

The array relating member forces to joint loads, whose rank rather than whose shape decides whether a frame can carry anything at all. Its null space is the set of self-stress states and its transpose's null space is the set of mechanisms, so Maxwell's rule is the difference of two dimensions and knows neither.

Named by 4 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

The count is necessary and not sufficient. Two pin-jointed frames, each satisfying m + r = 2j exactly. One of them folds anyway, because the equations are not independent; the ghosted outline is the motion that costs no member any change of length, drawn at an exaggeration of 0.55 of the span.

The count that does not see it

A frame can have exactly as many unknowns as equations and fold up anyway. The count asks whether there are enough equations; it never asks whether they are different from one another.

equilibrium · Determinacy A frame with no plane to be drawn in. The tetrahedron, solved: three equations at every free joint, one axial force in every member. Members drawn heavy carry more; tension and compression are separated by the sign that came back from the solve rather than by inspection. The count is m + r = 12 against 3j = 12, which makes it exactly determinate, and joint equilibrium closes to 1.8e-15.

Three equations at every joint

A plane truss is determinate when m + r = 2j. A space frame needs 3j, and that one changed digit is why a cube of twelve bars is six mechanisms short while looking perfectly solid — and why every three-dimensional frame ever built is made of triangles in several planes at once.

structures · Space frame Two null spaces of one matrix, and the count is their difference. Two pin-jointed frames, each with the forces it can carry with nothing applied to it drawn on its bars — tension one colour, compression the other, thickness in proportion. That force set is the null space of the equilibrium matrix; a mechanism is the null space of its transpose; and Maxwell's count b + r − 2j is the difference of their dimensions and knows neither of them separately. A square with both diagonals has s = 1 and m = 0. Two bars in a straight line has s = 1 and m = 1 with a count of 0, so the count is satisfied by a frame that both folds and can be prestressed — and the prestress stiffness is positive, which is why a tensioned pair of collinear bars is stiff at all.

The forces that are there with nothing applied

Maxwell's count is the difference between two dimensions, and it knows neither of them separately. A frame can satisfy it exactly and still both fold and be prestressable — and when it does, the second of those is what stops the first.

structures · Self-stress Four ways of being nearly a mechanism. Four measures of the two-bar frame against the angle its bars make with the line between the supports, on logarithmic axes: the bar force as a multiple of the load, the condition number of the equilibrium matrix, the largest relative change of force from a one-millimetre error in any joint's position, and the joint's sag under the load as a share of the rise, for bars of axial stiffness 200 MN over a span of 8.0 m, loaded with 50 kN. The first three grow as one over the angle: at 2° the force is 14.6 times the load, the condition number 54, and a millimetre of error changes the force by 0.7 per cent. The sag grows as the cube: 4.3 per cent of the rise at 8°, 41 per cent at 4°, 3.1 times it at 2°. The measure that ends the analysis is not the arithmetic's.

Rigid by every test, and still folding

Counting the unknowns says whether a frame can be solved and the rank of its equations says whether it can stand, and both answers are yes or no. A frame a few degrees from a critical form passes both and is still nearly a mechanism — and of the ways that shows, the last to arrive is the one the rank test measures. Its own sag under load eats a tenth of its geometry at six degrees; sixteen-figure arithmetic would not notice anything until well below half a degree.

equilibrium · Determinacy

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

MechanismCritical formDeterminacyBracingCable netCondition numberDouble-layer gridGeometric stiffnessIndependent equationsInfinitesimal mechanismLoad pathLoad-sharing

All concepts