ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Stress resultants

Imagine that you're building a tower out of blocks, and you want it to be really tall and sturdy. You have to make sure that each block is in the right place and is connected to the other blocks properly so that it can support the weight of the blocks above it. This is kind of like how engineers design buildings and structures in real life!

Now, imagine that the tower is standing upright, but then someone knocks into it. Some blocks might shift, some might fall off, and the tower might start leaning to one side. This is because of the force that the person applied when they bumped into the tower. Engineers call this force a "load."

In real life, buildings and structures also experience loads. These can come from a lot of different sources, like the weight of the building itself, people and objects inside the building, wind, earthquakes, and more. These loads can cause stress on the building, which means that the building has to be able to handle or resist them so that it doesn't collapse or fall apart.

Stress resultants are a way that engineers measure and analyze the stresses that buildings and structures experience. They use math to figure out how much stress is being applied to each part of the building, and how much strength and stiffness that part needs in order to resist the stress.

Think of it like this: imagine that you're trying to hold up a really heavy weight with just your arms. Your arms would be under a lot of stress, right? Now, imagine that you have a big, strong metal bar that you can use to help hold up the weight. The metal bar would be a "stress resultant" - it's helping to distribute the stress and share the load.

There are different types of stress resultants, like tension (when a material is being stretched), compression (when a material is being squished), torsion (when a material is being twisted), and bending (when a material is being bent). Engineers have to figure out which stress resultants are most important for each specific building or structure, and design it to be strong enough to handle those loads.