The route a load takes

Fields

Seven areas, in the order a load travels through a structure — and one that is not a step on that route at all, but the assumption the other six are resting on.
1289.510.5ΣM about one support gives the other reaction; ΣF then gives the first

Equilibrium

Nothing moves, so everything adds to nothing — and the free body decides what everything means.

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tensioncompression2 carrying nothing

Structural form

Trusses, cables and arches: the shapes that carry load by geometry rather than by bulk.

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2012.57.5shear 7.5moment 22.5the cut, at x = 5nothing was applied here — the internal forces are what the left-hand piece needs

Internal forces

What a cut reveals — shear, moment and axial force, and the diagrams that track them along a member.

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neutral axiscontribution of each striptotal I = 79.86 × 10⁶the outer strips do almost all of the work

Sections and stress

How a cross-section resists a moment, and why where the material sits matters more than how much there is.

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5010015020000.20.40.60.811.2slenderness (effective length ÷ radius of gyration)they cross at λ = 75squashingEuler bucklingreal columns, which are neither

Stability

Strong enough and still falling over: buckling, slenderness, and loads that make themselves worse.

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0.60.811.21.41.61.8200.511.5span, relative to the firstthey cross heredeflection runs out at 1.40strength runs out at 1.54the limitstrengthdeflection

Deflection

Stiffness is not strength. What moves, how far, and why the answer goes as the fourth power of the span.

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00.5%1%2%2%0100200300400500600strainstress, N/mm²the 0.2% proof stress: 460 N/mm²mild steelhigh-strength steelaluminium

Materials

The assumption every other field rests on: that stress is the modulus times the strain, without limit and in both directions. It is not, and here is what happens instead.

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A field says what an essay is about, and the order above is the order a load travels: it is applied, it is resisted by a form, it becomes an internal force, it meets a section, and then two things can go wrong — the member buckles, or it moves too far. Threads say what an essay rhymes with, ladders say how deep one idea goes, and the concept index says which essays name the same objects.