Fairly Fundamental Facts about Forces and Structures

Engineers take into consideration the impact of many types of forces when designing structures. Factors that influence the design decisions include: anticipated use of the structure, expected weather exposure, and the type of soil it will be built upon. Engineers choose the best materials and design approaches for buildings and machines by calculating how much, and what kind of stresses each material is able to withstand without failure.

After this lesson, students should be able to:

• Identify the five fundamental loads: compression, tension, shear, bending and torsion.
• Explain the concept of a moment and how to calculate one.
• Explain how moments create bending and torsion loads on structures