261–270 of 402 posts
The beams that make the structure are held together using some clever wooden joints that I've never seen before, some of which only reveal their secrets when taken apart and reassembled, all of which is done almost exclusively using hand tools:
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> "Steel is springy. Tall steel-framed buildings and bridges routinely sway in wind, which is usually harmless to the structure but annoying to occupants." exactly, i recently mentioned my swaying-in-an-earthquake story[0], which was in a class A (steel+concrete) highrise office building. driving steel into the ground doesn't automatically mean it will rot and/or break in the first earthquake/windstorm that hits, eve…
You misunderstood my comment about steel in the ground ... I was trying to convince the OP that they don't need to worry about the corrosion since even in terrible circumstances the steel still lasts quite a while. With regard to your skyscraper experience: I'm not sure this is an apples-to-apples comparison. Skyscrapers are not made of skyscraper-height columns - they are a stack of elements that are connected every…
The flex is supposed to be in the beams, not the connections. Stress concentration is bad. Here's an intro.[1] Beams are easy to analyze, and tend to meet their specs, while connections are hard to analyze, and are subject to construction mistakes.
The January 1994 Northridge CA earthquake caused damage at beam-to-column connections in steel moment resisting frames. That got a lot of attention. Few buildings collapsed, but a lot of joints needed to be fixed or reinforced.[2] Welded flanges with bolts turned out to be weaker than expected.
Now, there's a style of construction where all the joints are rotational. That's seen in older truss bridges.[3] In classic designs, all components are in pure compression or pure tension. This shows in the construction; the tension components are flat plates or cables, and the joints are big steel pins. Those are easy to analyze, and if you take a statics class, that's a homework assignment. Popular for railroad bridges.
But building skeletons aren't usually built that way. They usually have rigid connections. You do see some buildings with lots of diagonals and pin joints. Long span roof trusses, which are a lot like bridges, are often built that way. Look at buildings with large atriums and you'll often see pin joints.
[1] https://www.thestructuralmadness.com/2014/04/possible-types-...
[2] https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/IR/nistir5625.pdf
I personal would look to the subsurface. In the right location unground dwellings could last longer that human civilization the earth. https://www.atlassurvivalshelters.com/
Step 1. Build it on solid bedrock in a location not prone to earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, rising ocean levels, volcanoes, etc. Build it in a location unlikely to be bombed or otherwise involved in human conflict.
I hate to be a stuck in the mud, but a concrete pad, with unreinforced piles is not going to last a 1000 years. those piles are going to be impossible to repair without breaking the slab, or undermining, which means it's expensive to maintain. (yes Roman concrete has lasted 1k years, but thats a different type to the cement they use now.) The other thing that they've not managed to control is moisture. You can't mix…
Have they ever figured out how the Romans made concrete and got away with not using rebar ???.
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Ya. I'm very curious about this kind of stuff. And now especially "activhaus" ideas. Being a software guy, probably from envy. Ages ago, I started remodeling while my Belgian coworker (working from Belgian) started his new home construction. My house in the USA Pacific Northwest is timber framed with tar shingle roof. Coworker's house, IIRC, was block walls and ceramic roof. My house so temporary, their house built f…
Rammed earth you definitely need to be careful of the humidity and mitigation internal humidity is going to be important. Good technique though for arid/desert climates. Timber Frame + external insulation with anairtight building envelope is a really good construction method that will be energy efficient and last a long time.
There are lots of materials to play with and mix up for structures.
I expected something much simpler : bricks, stones, and wood. It's not like we are running low on examples of 1000+ years buildings ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11th_century_in_architecture ). These castles, cathedrals, farms, were built to last, so it's appropriate to use them as examples. We can, however, apply modern technics and materials when they make sense : insulation, windows, waterways... Prefer wood, wo…
The fact that there's still a lot of buildings still standing doesn't mean they were built perfect, it just means their construction has the possibility of lasting a 1000 years. For each of those buildings I bet there were 10 more with the exact same building techniques that are no longer standing. A 1000 years is a lot of time to go without a fire. I think just because of the fire risk wood is simply out of the ques…
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What I see a lot of in my region (US PNW) is open kitchens integrating with informal dining areas (breakfast nook, or seating at a kitchen island) and living rooms. But most houses are still built with a separate dining room . Heck, my house was even built with a butler's pantry to connect them. That's pretty common.
You have a separate dining room if you’re building a 6 room or larger MANSION. Calling a building with a separate dining room on top of a kitchen plus informal dining room as a Regular home seems to be a stretch.
This is a very odd design document and it makes me think this author has thought a lot about materials and buildings but not actually built anything . The steel moment frame, to someone with shallow knowledge, sounds so strong and resilient . But in fact, a rigid steel structure is more vulnerable to seismic (and even wind) loads than wooden framing which can flex and move and dampen those loads naturally. The stainl…
> If I had an unlimited budget and was aiming for >1000 years I would pour the piles to bedrock with stainless rebar inside fly-ash concrete and top those pilings with plate connectors into which you could socket large wooden columns (perhaps 8x8) and build the structure with large wooden members connected with steel connectors and column caps, etc. Are there any existing buildings constructed that way that have stoo…
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How does the Pantheon in Rome keep its structure? Is it just concrete? Since it’s 2000 years old now.
Here's a good video on the use and tradeoffs of Roman concrete engineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL0BB2PRY7k TL;DW: whereas modern construction uses rebar as a way to keep concrete from fracturing under tensile stress, the Romans made their constructions enormous so that the weight of the structure itself would compress the material and keep it from failing from tensile stress. Their monuments weren't buil…