Engineering Structures 101 Structural Engineering: From the Beginning Professor Martin Fahey Head, School of Civil & Resource Engineering Room A1.10 (e-mail: [email protected])
Dec 17, 2015
Engineering Structures 101
Structural Engineering: From the Beginning
Professor Martin FaheyHead, School of Civil & Resource Engineering
Room A1.10(e-mail: [email protected])
Notre Dame de Paris: North Rose Window.
Suspended in perfect equilibrium on a web of stone, the immense north rose window remains intact after 700 years, its intricately interlocking blocks so exact they ring when struck. Though individual blocks may be removed for repairs without collapsing the whole, only minor buckling has occurred
13 m
17 m
Decorative features on tops of columns (statues, pinnacles, as in
Notre Dame, below) have stabilising function
Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, Italy.
Begun in 1296. “Segmented dome”
added by Brunelleschi in 1436.
42 m span, 91 m high.
Built without “centering”
Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, Italy.
Begun in 1296. Dome added by Brunelleschi
in 1436.
42 m span, 91 m high.
Built without “centering”
Shape is arch “a quinto acuto”
Interior of St Peter’s Basilica, Rome, showing
dome resting on four arches supported by four great
pillars
Gateway Arch, St Louis, USA.
This free-standing arch is 630 ft. high and the world's tallest. Built of triangular section of double-walled stainless steel, the space between the skins being filled with concrete after each section was placed.
Looks like perfect “inverted catenary” shape.
Interior of Carmel Mission. Built in 1793 it is an interesting design in that the walls curve inward towards the top, and the roof consists of a series of inverted catenary arches built of native sandstone quarried from the nearby SantaLucia Mountains. (Carmel, California)
Hooke’s “hanging chain” concept applied to the dome of Christopher Wren’s St Paul’s Cathedral. The “lantern” on top of
the dome distorts the “chain”