Question

A small rural bridge will have, at most, two cars on it at a time. Assume it can be modeled as a rigid horizontal beam element supported by three elastic vertical columns as shown.

Your design condition is two cars each weighing P=40kN each travelling exactly 20m apart from each other across the bridge. Find the maximum compressive and tensile forces experienced by the columns. For now, you can assume the maximum forces will be experienced when both cars are on the bridge.

The forces in the columns can be described with the following set of linear equations: 10 FaB + 28 Fc40 FGF dP -(d+20)P 12 FABLAB-30 Fckot 18 FGFLGF_0 20m LGF CD AB Om 18m 12m 10m Use whatever numerical methods you'd like, in MAILab or by hand, but don't invert any matrices in solving the problem!

Show your answer in a plot of d vs. forces experienced by the columns and find the maximum.

Answer 1