I'm working my way through the eighth edition of "Simplified Design of Steel Structures" by Ambrose and Tripeny (Parker having died at some point), and I'm finding it to be an odd mix of very basic definitions and material that requires substantial background. In the latter category, they've suddenly launched into shear and moment diagrams with no explanation of just what the diagram is visualizing.
Can somebody point me at a good source for this?
Pick a college statics text from about the same era as your book?
I don't have my statics book anymore or I'd cite it. It was a good one.
Grant
Trailers: How to Design and Build vol. 2 structure explains moment diagrams if your library has a copy. If not it is a nice book for the home library.
BTW its author is M.M. Smith
This looks like a good explanation.
Thanks to all who've responded so far -- lots of good information out there. Especially good is a link from the roymech site to
On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:21:45 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, Bill quickly quoth:
You like that book? Most of the Amazon reviews give it one star and review it quite harshly. I decided not to buy it because of them.
The shear diagram is deisgned to help visuallize the total forces on a beam, which are sometimes not obvious. The moment diagram helps visualize the magnatide and location of the bending moment on the beam. The maximum moment (and therefore the maximum bending stress) is located where the shear diagram changes sign. The power of the diagrams comes when you have several externally applied forces and moments on a beam.
People think that it is going to have trailer designs in it. It doesnt. But it does tell you how to design a trailer and what forces are acting on it. But it also has a bit of higher math in it. I think that is why people give it a bad review.
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