[jghunter1]

In a Statics and Strength of Materials the homework requires calculating the force upon internal points of a truss. Can you recommend any resources to help figure out how to work these problems? Reviewing the textbook and class notes is not helping!!

[ebaines]

Typically for a course in vbasic staics these problems are solved by looking at the horizontal and vertical components of force at each node in the truss, and then solving the resutant set of simultaneous equations to ensure each node is in equilibrium. It helps to draw a free body diagram of each node. It can get a little more complicated if the geometry for the truss is indeterminate - in this case there are too many unknowns to solve based purely on equilibrium concepts, and you need to get into deflection of each truss member. But for most beginning mechanics the equilibrium approach should be suffient.

Perhaps this will help:

Topic 2.2 Trusses

[jghunter1]

Thank You! That was much clearer than the texbook notes. I appreciate your help.