There
are forces pushing, pulling and twisting every structure.
Some of these forces are created by what we do with a structure,
such as walking over a bridge or sitting on a chair. Some
forces are there all the time
Everything
on the surface of the earth is attracted to the centre. This
never changes. A structure on the earth's surface is being pulled
downwards by gravity. This gravity creates pulling
(stretching) and pushing
(squashing) in various parts of the structure
Docklands footbridge.
The
amount of push can be measured and is called load
(not weight). It is these effects or loads that we need to understand
