Design of a simple steel truss

If it can be assured that the compression members of a truss will not buckle, then a design to sustain a given loading can be made at once, without a full ‘classical' analysis (such an analysis is, however, needed to estimate elastic stiffness). The buckling of a member may lead to overall collapse of a structure, and certain precautions can be taken against such catastrophic behaviour. Whatever tools of analysis are used, the ‘actual' state of a hyperstatic structure cannot be calculated – it results from unknown defects during manufacture and unknown movements imposed by the environment in which the structure is supported.