FW: Re: [Cob] Goudi and engineering

[Amanda Peck]

Carl asked me to forward this.  From this, Gaudi seems to have been pushing 
the structural capabilities of his materials, but carefully.  One might keep 
the "carefully" in mind when falling in love with arches, vaults, the flying 
aspect of buttresses, even flowerpots on the tops of columns.  The article 
is pretty interesting--talking about recreating historic, no longer extant 
buildings digitally with software that was not exactly designed for the 
purpose--it might even be animation software. And I left the link in to 
a--famous--structural engineering for kids book.

........................................

From: carl <carl at cgpl.org (snipped a bit):

Yes simple hanging weights on strings in the case of Goudi, but its the 
knowledge to know how to use.  Goudi had samples crushed under hydraulic 
pressure so he would know exactly how much psi the columns he made would 
hold.  Strings in tension model the compression.  compression and tension 
are in some way the same... you can not have compression with out tension.  
In "all" compressive buildings the tension is expressed by the forces inside 
the stone / building block  ie.... when will they explode or split under 
pressure how much pressure.  So the method of strings and weights is simple, 
but its the knowledge of how to use it that is not so simple.   In a book 
for kids the relationship between and compression and tension forces are 
demonstrated by the chains and weights.

Only Goudi knew how to use them and the cost of his buildings were very high 
and they took a long time to build  ( limited by the number of skilled 
craftsmen that can physical work on the critical path structures )  was in 
all the labor to put the right amount of material in the exactly the right 
place within an 1/8 of an inch would be my guess.  The craftsmen worked from 
the string models.  So many times Goudi would in the middle of his 
construction ( looked like it could be finish by others who would work 
faster ) would be fired....  and he would be force to take his craftsmen and 
his string model with him....  The construction would continue at much 
faster pace ....  with out his guidance and then collapse during or just 
after completion killing many workman......  Then it would be said that it 
was Goudi's fault.

I am a sculptor and the planed masters work of my life is the automation so 
to speak of Goudi using natural building materials.  My recent journal 
publication may be of interest to you or other members of the group .. ...   
http://www.u-aizu.ac.jp/~vilb/cgfV004.pdf



Amanda Peck wrote:

>
>Fascinating.  I've got a book for kids on structural engineering--they show 
>hanging weights on chains to approximate arch shapes--that kind of thing? 
>Must be more complicated to size supports and such.
>
>I love the book:
>
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D1556520808/bridgesightsoftwA/103-6977152-4198211
>

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