:-) Good Point !!! I was talking about the philosophy of engineering design.
Right, all beams and trusses need light lateral support on the compression flange or you can get failure as you described. The lateral support must be at a specified spacing per code. If my memory is correct, what you described is called buckling failure or to expand on the words... buckling failure of the compression flange. You sound like you are engineering aware or just observant. Most people are neither :-( .
On 1/6/2013 1:25 PM, Doug wrote: ...
BSNE, MS Phys(NucSci)
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In the old days of putting trusses together manually they would use what th ey called a stomper. It was essentially a truck axle with a steel plate we lded to the flange. They would lay the truss on its side and stand on it t hen raise the stomper and slam the steel plate down onto the gusset plate, driving the entire gusset into the wood. It wasn't perfect but it worked.
I have used a big sledge hammer holding the handle vertically and using the flat top of the hammer head. These will not be legal trusses but they worked OK for my shed. Truss factories use a hydraulic press.
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