Design of Building Trusses (Parker/Ambrose Series of Simplified Design Guides)

This book is a more modern version of the Simplified Design series that was originally written by Harry Parker and updated by James Ambrose. Mr. Ambrose covers a lot of historical matter about trusses in this book, which is oddly helpful for me with work I do with older buildings. He covers all of the different types of trusses, and gets into detail about common timber and steel trusses.His analysis and design sections are well written. A lot of structural engineering texts have very turgid language making it hard to decipher the simplest concepts, but Mr. Parker covers in plain every day language how to design a truss that makes the process very simple. The figures are easy to understand, and he gives easy to understand examples. What I found helpful is that he covers vertical trusses extensively and how to analyze them. Vertical trusses are very good for resisting wind loads, and this is the first text I've found to cover them specifically in such detail.What makes this text more valuable is he covers in detail how to design the connections of trusses. With wood trusses there are a lot of factors to take into account, and he goes through it step by step. He also covers issues such as the loading of top chords of trusses from the vertical live and dead loads, which is often ignored in other texts. Finally, he gets into graphic analysis of trusses, which was done in the days before electronic calculators and then personal computers. I kind of skipped over that part.I actually sat and read through the text in one evening, which is not something one normally can do with an engineering text. If you are designing trusses, this is a must have book for your library.

Well written, practical without the added fluff most books add that contribute nothing. Good examples, and the graphical analysis portion is excellent.

This book is not written by a Pulitzer prize winning author, but it is still very readable. It spoon feeds the technology well enough for an armchair understanding by any "victim" of liberal arts. I'm not sure if the technology is totally up to date because of its mid-90's publication date. But, unless you're actually an engineer or architect relying on the science that's discussed, then it's a very good product.

This is an excellent book on fundamentals of analysis and design for wood and steel trusses. It also has the best explanation and instructions on graphical analysis that I've found.

Works as expected.

VERY GOOD

The books of the Ambrose serie generally are very good. This book is not the exception.The Chapter 10 "Design of Steel Trusses" includes Joints in Steel Trusses (very well explained), an important aspect in the design, forgotten for the majority of the designers and structural engineers, but essential in the stability and perfomance of the a trussIn the chapter 16 reviews different forms of trusses searching the maximum efficiency.This book is a "must have" publication .You can purchase with security. It will be very useful in your daily workFernando A. Medina RBogotá, Colombia

I needed a good source book for the work I was doing at this time and recieved it quickly and in great condition. The analysis techniques are in use right now.