Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations cowski on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
tripod stability calculation?
- Thread starter jscotty29
- Start date
I remember getting flummoxed by this sort of problem in freshman "statics" class; then it was a table on four legs. The key is to consider the discontinuity in the equations of equilibrium.
"By inspection" it's apparent that the tripod will pivot in a vertical plane about the base of two of the legs. In a real Nor'easter I suppose the tripod might pivot about the base of only one leg. But such a condition is not especially stable, it is mathematically "chaotic".
Anyway, consider the bending moment (wind) needed to hold the tripod in equilibrium when the force at the third leg is "0". 0 force on the third leg equates to the tripod losing contact with the ground; any additional bending moment will cause the tripod to fall over.
Tom Barsh
Codeware Technical Support
"By inspection" it's apparent that the tripod will pivot in a vertical plane about the base of two of the legs. In a real Nor'easter I suppose the tripod might pivot about the base of only one leg. But such a condition is not especially stable, it is mathematically "chaotic".
Anyway, consider the bending moment (wind) needed to hold the tripod in equilibrium when the force at the third leg is "0". 0 force on the third leg equates to the tripod losing contact with the ground; any additional bending moment will cause the tripod to fall over.
Tom Barsh
Codeware Technical Support
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Question