Trusses, like all structures, are devices for transferring loads from where

you dont want them to where you do. A roof truss takes the weight of the
roofand the snow on the roof if you live in that kind of climateand
transfers it out into the load-bearing walls of your house. A bridge truss
takes the weight of the cars and trucks passing over it and transfers it to
the piers. What makes a truss different from other structuresrafters, say,
for a roof, or arches for a bridgeis the clever and efficient way it carries the
load. Trusses tend to be very lightweight because they take advantage of
geometry and the laws of statics. Lets look at each of these

Geometry
Imagine you have a set of flat sticks, like popsicle sticks or tongue
depressors, and you drill holes at the ends of every stick so you can
connect them with little bolts. If you connect three sticks together in a
triangle, you get a structure that stays rigid even if you dont tighten the
bolts much.

If, on the other hand, you make a square with four sticks, it will be almost
impossible to keep the structure from turning into a rhombus when you

push on it, no matter how much tightening you do.

Unlike the triangle, the rigidity of this structure depends on the rigidity of the
connections. To really keep a square rigid, you need to add a diagonal
brace to create two triangles within the square.

This inherent rigidity of triangles is a geometric property. So if you want to

make a structure thats rigid regardless of the rigidity of its connections, you
start with a triangle and build onto it by adding sticks to make more
triangles. That, in a nutshell, is a truss.

Laws of statics
An ideal truss is like our assembly of popsicle sticks: a set of straight
members or elements, pinned together at their ends, with forces applied
only at the joints. (Well get to the relation between real trusses and ideal
ones in a bit.) Under these conditions, each member in a truss is loaded
only at its ends. Some of the loads may be coming from the externally
applied forces, and others will be coming from the members to which its
connected, but whatever their source, the loads are acting exclusively at
the ends.
Applying the equations of statics, we can show that if a body is loaded at
two points only, the resultant forces at those points
1.

are equal in magnitude;

2.

are opposite in direction; and

3.

act along the line between the two points.

For our truss members, this means that forces on the members are axial
(that is, they act along the axis of the member), putting them in either pure
tension or pure compression.

In trusses loaded by downward forces, the members along the top (the top
chord) are in compression and the members along the bottom (the bottom
chord) are in tension. The members connecting the top and bottom chords
(the web members) may be tension or compression, depending on their
angles and the distribution of the loads.

The forces in the members can be calculated in several ways. The

traditional by hand methods are the method of joints and the method of
sections. For truss analysis via computer, the finite element method is the
standard technique.

Efficiency
The fact that the forces on each truss member are axial is the key to a
trusss efficiency. In an axially-loaded member, the force is carried equally
by every part of the memberno part is wasted.
Contrast this to a beam. When you load a beam at the center, the stresses
are much higher there than anywhere else. The material away from the
center just isnt doing as much work, lowering the efficiency of the
structure.

You have, by the way, an instinctive understanding of this. If

someone hands you a pencil and asks you to break it, you put
your thumbs against the center and bend it. Youd never
consider grabbing the two ends and pulling or pushing. You
couldnt even break a toothpick that way.
By sizing the members of a truss just right, you can tune it to carry huge
loads while using very little material.