Department of CE, KITSW U18CE205 ENGINEERING MECHANICS

1CE AY:2022-23
CDT21LECTURE SUMMARY

CDT20 Determine the forces in the members by method of joints for a simply supported truss.

Topics Covered

Motivation Analyze the truss members or finding the axial force in members
(Why you
(students) should
learn these topics?)

Lecture Learning Outcomes (LLOs):After completion of this lecture, you should be able to…
LLO1On topic 1
Analyze the forces in the members by method of joints.

CDT20– Lecture Summary – Key Takeaways

Various methods to determine the axial forces in the truss members.
1) Method of joints
2) Method of sections

Procedure for analysis of truss bymethod of joints

 Verify the stability and determinacy of the structure. If the truss is stable and
determinate, then proceed to the next step.
 Determine the support reactions in the truss.
 Identify the zero-force members in the system. This will immeasurably reduce
the computational efforts involved in the analysis.
 Select a joint to analyze. At no instance should there be more than two
unknown member forces in the analyzed joint.
 Draw the isolated free-body diagram of the selected joint, and indicate the
axial forces in all members meeting at the joint as tensile (i.e. as pulling away
from the joint). If this initial assumption is wrong, the determined member
axial force will be negative in the analysis, meaning that the member is in
compression and not in tension.
 Apply the two equations Σ Fx = 0 and Σ Fy = 0 to determine the member axial
forces.
 Continue the analysis by proceeding to the next joint with two or fewer
unknown member forces.

CDT20- LECTURE LEVEL PRACTICE PROBLEMS (LLPs) to test the LLOs

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 Department of CE, KITSW U18CE205 ENGINEERING MECHANICS
1CE AY:2022-23
CDT21LECTURE SUMMARY
LLP1:Using the method of joint, Analyze the forces in members of truss and indicate the
nature of force

Figure.1

LLP2:Determine the forces in all the members of the truss shown in Fig. and indicate the
magnitude and nature of forces on the diagram of the truss. All inclined members are at
60° to horizontal and length of each member is 2 m.

Figure.2
Additional LLPs: Practice problems for homework
LLP1.1 (on LLO1)::Using the method of joint, Find forces in members DC, DB and HB of the
truss shown in figure 1.1

Figure.1.1

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