Point Loads and Impulse
Jeremy Schwartz
The questions probed in this tech note is how to determine the safety of scenery that is receiving heavy point loading or impulse forces. An example of just such a situation would be a platform on which one or more actors are jumping around. The first solution to this issue would be to just grossly overbuild the platform, like the proverbial ‘brick shithouse.’
Of course, this is not a very elegant solution — rather, it would be nice to have a way to actually calculate the effect of impulse forces and point loads on a platform. This tech note will deal with each of these issues.
1 Point Loads
Most structural standards and rules of thumb are built on the assumption that loads will be evenly distributed. The issue with which we should be most concerned when dealing with structural elements is the maximum stress