MOTD (Meme of the Day)

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Yep. Steel does better in tension than compression because it can buckle under compression. Thats why they make cables out of steel and pillars out of concrete. When you're talking about plate steel and a 1-2ft span, you will get a measurable (tens of thousandths of an inch) of deflection, which is what you're trying to avoid. A properly designed and gussetted truss will be more effective, but no one mass produces those as far as I've seen. The old Con-Ferr under the axle threaded rod trusses we're possibly more effective from a design standpoint.
 
Yep. Steel does better in tension than compression because it can buckle under compression. Thats why they make cables out of steel and pillars out of concrete. When you're talking about plate steel and a 1-2ft span, you will get a measurable (tens of thousandths of an inch) of deflection, which is what you're trying to avoid. A properly designed and gussetted truss will be more effective, but no one mass produces those as far as I've seen. The old Con-Ferr under the axle threaded rod trusses we're possibly more effective from a design standpoint.
I copied this design for an old Ford axle......everybody laughed. I laughed too. I personally don't like the anvil look of most built axles.....but haven't found a approach that seems any better. The look and strength I want by design me thinks would be unobtainium.
 
Yep. Steel does better in tension than compression because it can buckle under compression. Thats why they make cables out of steel and pillars out of concrete.

Can you make a truss loaded in pure tension like you can a cable? Probably not. ;)
If the truss is underneath the housing, the housing is now in compression and the truss in tension. You haven't solved the goal of not having steel in compression, you just change where it happens. Also, if the truss is in tension, the top chord is in tension but the supporting web is in compression. So the web could buckle in compression. The point is, either orientation can work very well if designed properly to suit the orientation.
 
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Can you make a truss loaded in pure tension like you can a cable? Probably not. ;)
Those Con-Ferr axle "trusses" were about as close as you could get to being entirely in tension ;)
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