Question

You are working as an assistant to your cousin, who is an architect. She is currently designing the lobby for a new luxury hotel. The lobby will include a walkway suspended above the main level. Her design will include the following features. Above the walkway, attached at various points along its length, will be vertical steel cables of diameter 1.27 cm and unstressed length 5.65 m. These cables will run upward from the walkway and be attached to a rigid beam in the internal structure of the lobby. Below each point of attachment of a vertical cable will be an aluminum column on which the walkway rests. Each column is a hollow cylinder of inner diameter 16.04 cm and outer diameter 16.18 cm. Before the walkway is installed, the columns will extend 3.25 m from the floor of the lobby to the height at which the bottom of the walkway will lie. Suppose the walkway and any individuals walking on it exert a downward force of magnitude F = 8,900 N on a particular attachment point to a cable above and the corresponding column below. Before committing to this design, your cousin asks you to determine how far the point of attachment of the walkway will move downward under these load conditions.

Answer 1