A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE TIMBER TRUSSES IN ITALY (1800–1950)
A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE TIMBER TRUSSES IN ITALY (1800–1950)

Author(s): Emanuele Zamperini
Subject(s): History, Recent History (1900 till today), 19th Century
Published by: Scientia Socialis, UAB
Keywords: Timber trusses; Theory of structures; Statically indeterminate structures;
Summary/Abstract: Until the mid–19th century timber trusses were designed on empirical basis thanks to a centuries–old experience; they couldn’t be analysed with the theory of statically–determinate trusses, because loads weren’t applied in the joints, hypothesis required to ignore the static indeterminacy. In the late 1850s a specific structural analysis method was developed for timber trusses, considering rafters as continuous beams on rigid supports. Ignoring the deformation of intermediate supports, such analysis didn’t satisfy constitutive and strain–displacement equations. Even if since the 1870s the theoretical developments allowed the exact calculation of statically–indeterminate structures, often engineers still resorted to empiricism, or simplified methods.

• Details
• Contents