We call piezoelectromechanical (PEM) truss beam a truss modular beam coupled with a transmission electrical line when the coupling is obtained by piezoelectric actuators which act as bars in the module and as capacitances in the electrical line. The truss module length is assumed negligible with respect to the considered wave lengths. The transmission electrical line is assumed continuously dis...

Incorporating User Design Preferences into Multi-Objective Roof Truss Optimization. (May 2006) Breanna Michelle Weir Bailey, B.S., Texas A&M University; M.S., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Anne Raich Automated systems for large-span roof truss optimization provide engineers with the flexibility to consider multiple alternatives during conceptual design...

Traditional truss design and analysis assumes pinned joints at the connections. Other design provisions recommend that the trusses be designed and analyzed as frame structures, with careful consideration of the stress, timber behavior, and joint response. A large body of knowledge has been compiled detailing truss behavior as it relates to member properties and responses. However, the modeling ...

Tensegrity structures are a special class of lightweight truss structures, where all truss elements are axially loaded and tensile truss elements are made of strings. This paper presents the dynamic analysis of a tensegrity structure by comparing a finite element model with an identified model obtained from experimental data. Experimental data is obtained by placing a three stage tensegrity str...

We present and motivate a new model of the truss topology design problem, where the rigidity of the resulting truss with respect both to given loading scenarios and small “occasional” loads is optimized. It is shown that the resulting optimization problem is a semidefinite program. We derive and analyze several equivalent reformulations of the problem and present illustrative numerical examples.

An assembled plane truss structure used for vehicle loading is designed and manufactured. In the truss, the glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) tube and the steel joint are connected by a new technology featuring a pretightened tooth connection. The detailed description for the rod and node design is introduced in this paper, and a typical truss panel is fabricated. Under natural conditions, ...

In order to assist students, gain conceptual understanding of internal forces, a physical manipulative of a truss was developed in order to help students visualize, feel, and analyze the behavior of the material being manipulated. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how a physical manipulative of a truss contributed to the conceptual understanding of truss analysis in static...

This paper presents a formulation of robust topology optimization of trusses subjected to the stress constraints under the load uncertainty. A design-dependent uncertainty model of external loads is proposed for considering the variation of truss topology in the course of optimization. For a truss with the discrete member cross-sectional areas, it is shown that the robust topology optimization ...

A new method for fabricating carbon fiber composite pyramidal truss cores was developed based on the molding hot-press technique. In this method, all the continuous fibers of composite are aligned in the direction of struts and thus, the truss structure can fully exploit the intrinsic strength of the fiber reinforced composite. The microstructure and organizations of fibers of fabricated compos...

This study is to analyse the dynamical instability (or the buckling) of a steel space truss using the accurate solutions obtained by the high-order Taylor series method. One is used to obtain numerical solutions for analysing instability, because it is difficult to find the analytic solution for a geometrical nonlinearity system. However, numerical solutions can yield incorrect analyses in the ...