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Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

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Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#121

Post by [deleted] »

londons_explore wrote: post #114
Retric wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It cost even less labor to use minimal bracing for strait walls, these are curved for athletics. I suspect they are imitations of curved fruit walls popular in the 1600’s before greenhouses took off.

I don't think this is the case. A wavy wall with a wave amplitude of X has the same toppling resistance as a straight wall with buttresses on both sides of length x/2. Assuming this stackoverflow answer is correct[1], the sine wave has (slightly) less bricks. [1]: https://math.stackexchange.com/a/1500468

[deleted]

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#122

Post by episiarch »

ehnto wrote: post #100
Sharlin wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the lawns of today’s middle class are of course still about signaling, it being very humsn for people to try to raise themselves up by adopting and imitating the lifestyle and customs of the class above them. "Look, I have enough leisure time to spend on an entirely superfluous activity!" or "Look, I’m wealthy enough to pay somebody to engage in an entirely superfluous activity!" Particularly in arid climates it’…

Something that gave me a chuckle growing up where I did in Australia: everyone's lawn died in the summer. You're weren't allowed to water it enough due to drought measures, and the summers are so hot they die off on the first heat of the season. I notice a lot more people ditch the lawn for native plants now. Sure does look a lot less futile than spending a third of your lot on dead grass. Many memories playing crick…

Lawns don't usually die in the summer, they go dormant. You can usually distinguish between dead grass and dormant grass by observing the color: dormant grass is yellow, while dead grass is grayish.

Texas lawns commonly use some form of bermuda grass, which goes dormant during the hot season (typically late July to late September). Some lawns will mix in a rye grass which shows bright green color during this same season to preserve the look, but obviously this compromises the growth of both types of grass.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#123

Post by pletnes »

vharuck wrote: post #78

Soda cans also have a counterintuitive efficiency feature: concave bottoms. If a can with a flat bottom held the same amount of soda, it would be shorter and have less surface area, but its metal body would need to be thicker to withstand the same pressure. In the end, it'd require more aluminum. https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Science-Notebook/2015/0414... ^Probably not the best article for this, but it was easy t…

Also in the current design you can stack them. This is probably worth something in terms of wrapping of pallets of cans.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#124

Post by Retric »

londons_explore wrote: post #114
Retric wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It cost even less labor to use minimal bracing for strait walls, these are curved for athletics. I suspect they are imitations of curved fruit walls popular in the 1600’s before greenhouses took off.

I don't think this is the case. A wavy wall with a wave amplitude of X has the same toppling resistance as a straight wall with buttresses on both sides of length x/2. Assuming this stackoverflow answer is correct[1], the sine wave has (slightly) less bricks. [1]: https://math.stackexchange.com/a/1500468

A single repetition of the wave is misleading. For N repetitions of the wave you need N + 1 buttresses not 2 N.

Also, while brick is stronger in compression a buttress increases toppling resistance in both directions so you need to consider material properties not just the geometry.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#125

Post by oatmeal1 »

geeky4qwerty wrote: post #26

This feels a bit like diet clickbait... "use fewer bricks than a straight wall"* *A straight wall of the approximal strength and length of a wavy wall, not just length. My counter would be that from a practical perspective the amount of space wasted by the wavy design seems to negate the usefulness of the design. Probably makes the lawn crew dizzy when mowing it too!

Also IMHO it looks horrible.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#126

Post by throwaway894345 »

deaddodo wrote: post #28
throwaway894345 wrote: post #16

I’ll save folks some reading: they’re comparing a very thick straight wall with a much thinner wavy wall.

The primary point is that you can't make an equivalently thin straight wall due to natural (wind and gravity, primarily) forces. Kinda weird to summarize it without the crux of why .

> Kinda weird to summarize it without the crux of why.

I agree, the headline did a very poor job of summarizing.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#127

Post by Terr_ »

Another reason for some a wavy walls involves capturing more heat from sunlight over the course of a day, in this example for nearby plants:

> The Dutch, meanwhile, began to develop curved varieties that could capture more heat, increasing thermal gain (particularly useful for a cooler and more northern region). The curves also helped with structural integrity, requiring less thickness for support.

[0] https://99percentinvisible.org/article/fruit-walls-before-gr...

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#128

Post by codyb »

vharuck wrote: post #78

Soda cans also have a counterintuitive efficiency feature: concave bottoms. If a can with a flat bottom held the same amount of soda, it would be shorter and have less surface area, but its metal body would need to be thicker to withstand the same pressure. In the end, it'd require more aluminum. https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Science-Notebook/2015/0414... ^Probably not the best article for this, but it was easy t…

I think that's also why a pretty small kink in the can will make it tremendously easier to crush against your forehead as a party trick :-)

Or, more likely, it's a similar principle also at place in the design.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#129

Post by [deleted] »

pletnes wrote: post #123
vharuck wrote: post #78

Soda cans also have a counterintuitive efficiency feature: concave bottoms. If a can with a flat bottom held the same amount of soda, it would be shorter and have less surface area, but its metal body would need to be thicker to withstand the same pressure. In the end, it'd require more aluminum. https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Science-Notebook/2015/0414... ^Probably not the best article for this, but it was easy t…

Also in the current design you can stack them. This is probably worth something in terms of wrapping of pallets of cans.

[deleted]

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#130

Post by rvba »

3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #113
vharuck wrote: post #78

Soda cans also have a counterintuitive efficiency feature: concave bottoms. If a can with a flat bottom held the same amount of soda, it would be shorter and have less surface area, but its metal body would need to be thicker to withstand the same pressure. In the end, it'd require more aluminum. https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Science-Notebook/2015/0414... ^Probably not the best article for this, but it was easy t…

Same about waviness on plastic bottles. https://www.riverkeeper.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/bottl...

The waviness around makes it easier to hold them too. Although to some degree it might be marketing as well?
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