How Structures Work: Design and Behaviour from Bridges to Buildings

HOW STRUCTURES WORK DESIGN AND BEHAVIOUR FROM BRIDGES TO BUILDINGS, THIRD EDITION DAVID YEOMANS Structural engineering is essential 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 bahaviour of structures in a clear way without resorting to complex mathematics. It is aimed at all who require a good qualitative understanding of structures, their behaviour, and design, and as such will be of benefit to students of architecture, architectural history, building surveying and civil engineering. The straightforward, nonmathematical approach ensures it will also be suitable for a wider audience including building administrators and the interested layman. This new edition includes a new chapter to deal with some little understood structures both ancient and modern. Reviews of the first edition “How Structures work is the most compelling on structures that I have ever read. And I have read a lot of books on structures.” —R.L.Brungraber, Ph.D., P.E Timber Framing: Journal of the Timber Framers Guild, December 2009 “The author writes beautifully. It is a user-friendly engaging book to read and one that is very easy to understand. One learns a lot by reading it … I think it should be a compulsory text for all first year engineering students.” From a review of the first edition commissioned by the publisher.

Table of Contents:
Preface from the First Edition x Preface to the Third Edition xvi 1 Brackets and Bridges 1 Cooper's tragedy 2 The Forth Bridge 4 Members in compression 6 The Quebec Bridge 8 Forces in a bracket 9 The design process 13 Stresses 14 2 Stiffening a Beam — Girder Bridges 16 The simple truss 22 Tension trusses 27 Girder bridges: The Forth Bridge 31 3 Arches and Suspension Bridges 33 Building an arch 35 Blackfriars Bridge 37 Pontypridd Bridge 39 The forces in an arch 39 Practical issues 41 Forces within the arch ring 43 Edwards's failure 48 An unexpected failure 49 Arch with point load 50 Iron and concrete arches 51 The suspension bridge 54 Arches in buildings: Flying buttresses 57 Arches in walls 60 4 Bringing the Loads to the Ground — The Structural Scheme 63 Introduction 63 The alternatives 64 Nature of the loads 66 Choices 68 'Flow of forces' or action and reaction 71 Describing the structure 73 Structures are three-dimensional 75 Statically indeterminate structures 76 5 Safe as Houses? — Walls 79 Bricks and mortar 81 Point loads and openings 85 Cavity walls 88 Thick walls 90 Foundation loads 93 Horizontal loads 94 Rafter thrusts 98 Foundation stresses 101 6 Frames — A Problem of Stability 103 Timber framing 104 Construction of a barn 108 Bracing forces 111 Bending in the post 112 Light frame construction 113 The coming of iron 115 The frame today 122 The multistorey frame 126 Columns 130 7 Floors and Beams — Deflections and Bending Moments 134 The need for science 140 Floors and deflections 140 The forces in the beam 142 Strain 143 Galileo's cantilever 145 Finding the stresses 147 From cantilever to beam 148 Iron and steel beams 150 Cast iron 150 Reinforced concrete beams 153 Continuous beams 155 Shear 159 Two]way floors 160 Other structures in bending 163 Prestressing 168 8 Providing Shelter — Roofs 173 Common rafter roofs 174 Purlin roofs 179 Longitudinal stability 185 The roof truss 188 The coming of iron 190 Three]dimensional roofs 192 9 Structures in a Three-Dimensional World 198 Vaults 198 The pointed vault 202 Elaborations on the basic vault form 203 Building vaults 206 Domes 207 Some historical examples 212 The modern three]dimensional structure 216 Anticlastic forms 220 Structures in tension 222 Structures for their time and place 224 10 Materials and Workmanship 226 Walling materials 227 Timber 228 Iron and steel 229 Compatibility of materials 233 Material development and design 234 11 Additional Thoughts 235 Friction 235 Tension structures 238 The 'cantilever' stair 243 Modelling 247 Appendix: Some Elements of Grammar 251 Glossary 257 Index 267

About the Author :
About this author David Yeomans is an engineer, an historian and a teacher. He has taught in several schools of architecture in the United Kingdom and the United States, has been a consultant on World Heritage Sites and has written widely on the history of building structures. He is vice chairman of the Construction History Society.