Laura S. Height Engineer

 
Most skyscrapers are made of steel frames, concrete, and beams. Steel frames and concrete are strong in compression. Metal and glass cladding is also used.  Beams are vital in skyscrapers. A beam is a rigid member supported at each end, subjected to bending stresses from a direction perpendicular to its length.  They are usually made of steel and iron.  Beams are usually coated with plaster to protect them from heat.  Fiberglass wrapped in aluminum foil is sometimes wrapped around the beams for insulation.  Beams can be placed vertical, horizontal, or diagonal. Some are long and thick.  These beams help support the steel frame and concrete.
These are 5 of the tallest building in North America.

 

 

 Sears Tower, Chicago, IL
  • It was the world's tallest building until 1996.
 AON Center (Amoco Building), Chicago IL
  • It is the tallest building in the United States to change its name. Originally it was called the Standard Oil Building.

Chrysler Building, New York, NY
  • It is the tallest brick building in the world.

 One Liberty Pl., Philadelphia, PA
  • It is the first building to break the agreement not to exceed the height of the William Penn statue on the Philadelphia City Hall.

Columbia Seafirst Center, Seattle, WA
  • It is 937 feet tall. It was originally designed to be 1,005 feet tall.

    It had to be shortened because of a flight path to SeaTac Airport.

     

 
After interviewing Jerry, I found out some great information about buildings. when building a building I found out it is best to use simpler shapes like squares and triangles. Also that squares, rectangles, and triangles are the most common shapes for buildings.  It is the best for your base to be small and thick.  If you live in an area with high winds you should make your structure low so it holds up better.  When buildings do collapse, the most common cause is the foundation eroding. 

 

 If you want your building to be strong enough to withhold natural disasters, you should construct your building out of steel.

Beams are used in all buildings, but how many you use depends on the size of the building.

Links to information. 

  --Great Buildings

--Made How

 --How Stuff Works

--Chicago Public Library

--Emporis

 

 Project Reflections:

 

Our design was suitable to meet the criteria. It was about two inches taller than what it had to be and it help more than 45 pounds.  Some benefits to our design were that we made a triangle for support on all angles.  We corrugated all three sides so the sides had a lot of support. We placed three smaller triangles in the middle of our big triangle so the middle was supported up.  Our structure also had a few weaknesses.  We didn't reinforce the corners of the triangle and that's what ended up collapsing.  the glue might not have been very stable and didn't hold up very well.  If I made another structure I would put the three smaller triangles in the corners instead of the middle.  This would have made the corners be able to hold more weight.  I would also have glued the sides to the corrugation better.  I think the corrugation was a good idea and I'm glad we did it.  I think if we wouldn't have corrugated the sides, they would have collapsed even before the corners.  If the sides would have collapsed first, the Structure would have held a lot less weight.  I am happy with our total weight of 315 pounds.  We built our structure well.     

Pictures from:

 --Chicago Architecture

--About

--Mike Cline

 --Allen Sales and Services ltd.

 --The Seattle Times