Parrallel Truss Design

[mjhunt59]

My group has to design as stronger timber parrallel truss as possible (similar to this
Truss). Its to be dimensions 1.4m wide and no more than 0.55m high, we have many sizes of timber to use and glue, screw or bar joints. Can anyone recommend design or configurations to make it as strong as possible. Thanks

[zeglover]

hi from what i understand from structurs in uni (not a lot) you need to have most of the area at the extremities of the beam/truss, as that is where the most stress is, also moving the area away from the centroied (center of gravity) due to the parralall axis theorm ie making the web longer will allso help but if you do this too much then the truss will fail due to the web buckling,

hope this helps, any probs ill try and help