Structural Engineering & Statics
where the load goes
Concept

Joint — where it appears

The region where members meet, which has dimensions, components and a stiffness of its own. Every frame diagram draws it as a point, and the forces it carries are decided by lengths that point does not contain.

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

100 kNe = 150the dashed ring is the group's centroidworst bolt 50.37 kNSix bolts · direct shear 16.67 kN eachelastic vector method

The connection is not a point, and every diagram on this site says it is

Every free body drawn here has joined its members at points. Real structures fail at the joints far more often than in the members, and the reason is that a joint is exactly the region the theory behind every other page explicitly excludes.

connections · connection design the split, at 5.1 mvolume 0.100 × 10⁹ mm³ against 0.204 for a fan from the base3 of 3 members sized by buckling

The tree that strength does not ask for

A branching column carries a roof on many points and reaches the ground on one. Size every member by its stress and the optimum tree turns out to have no trunk at all — the best answer is a fan of straight struts from the base. Put buckling in and the trunk appears, at 57 per cent of the height.

structures · branching structure

Named alongside it

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

Load pathBolt groupBranching structureBucklingConcurrencyConnectionDisturbed regionEccentricityEquilibriumForm findingFree bodyFree body diagram

All concepts