Structural engineering is central to the design of a building. How the building behaves when subjected to various forces – the weight of the materials used to build it, the weight of the occupants or the traffic it carries, the force of the wind etc – is fundamental to its stability
Structural engineering is central to the design of a building. How the building behaves when subjected to various forces – the weight of the materials used to build it, the weight of the occupants or the traffic it carries, the force of the wind etc – is fundamental to its stability. The alliance between architecture and structural engineering is therefore critical to the successful design and completion of the buildings and infrastructure that surrounds us. Yet structure is often cloaked in mathematics which many architects and surveyors find difficult to understand.
How Structures Work has been written to explain the behaviour of structures in a clear way without resorting to complex mathematics. This new edition includes a new chapter on construction materials, and significant revisions to, and reordering of the existing chapters. It is aimed at all who require a good qualitative understanding of structures and their behaviour, and as such will be of benefit to students of architecture, architectural history, building surveying and civil engineering. The straightforward, non-mathematical approach ensures it will also be suitable for a wider audience including building administrators, archaeologists and the interested layman.
Table of Contents
Preface
1 Brackets and Bridges
Cooper’s tragedy
The Forth Bridge
Members in compression
The Quebec Bridge
Forces in a bracket
The design process
Stresses
2 Stiffening a Beam – Girder Bridges
The simple truss
Tension trusses
Girder bridges: The Forth Bridge
3 Arches and Suspension Bridges
Building an arch
Blackfriars Bridge
Pontypridd Bridge
The forces in an arch
Practical issues
Forces within the arch ring
Edwards’s failure
An unexpected failure
Arch with point load
Iron and concrete arches
The suspension bridge
Arches in buildings: Flying buttresses
Arches in walls
4 Bringing the Loads to the Ground – The Structural Scheme
Introduction
The alternatives
Nature of the loads
Choices ‘Flow of forces’ or action and reaction
Describing the structure
Structures are three ]dimensional
Statically indeterminate structures
5 Safe as Houses? – Walls
Bricks and mortar
Point loads and openings
Cavity walls
Thick walls
Foundation loads
Horizontal loads
Rafter thrusts
Foundation stresses
6 Frames – A Problem of Stability
Timber framing
Construction of a barn
Bracing forces
Bending in the post
Light frame construction
The coming of iron
The frame today
The multistorey frame
Columns
7 Floors and Beams – Deflections and Bending Moments
The need for science
Floors and deflections
The forces in the beam
Strain
Galileo’s cantilever
Finding the stresses
From cantilever to beam
Iron and steel beams
Cast iron
Reinforced concrete beams
Continuous beams
Shear
Two -way floors
Other structures in bending
Prestressing
8 Providing Shelter – Roofs
Common rafter roofs
Purlin roofs
Longitudinal stability
The roof truss
The coming of iron
Three -dimensional roofs
9 Structures in a Three -Dimensional World
Vaults
The pointed vault
Elaborations on the basic vault form
Building vaults
Domes
Some historical examples
The modern three -dimensional structure
Anticlastic forms
Structures in tension
Structures for their time and place
10 Materials and Workmanship
Walling materials
Timber
Iron and steel
Compatibility of materials
Material development and design
Appendix: Some Elements of Grammar
Glossary
Index