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Civil Engineers, and architects usually worry about how to support their structures. But being a freshmen and being able to design, and construct structures is a challenge for honors geometry students at Bloomington High. A good thing is that- we don't have to be concerned about weather, and natural disasters. Some devastating disasters that effect real-world structures are; earthquakes, landslides, floods, tsunamis, tornadoes, and many more. Natural disasters injure and kill people, damage or destroy property, weaken the societal infrastructure (foundation), and cost the country billions of dollars each year in economic losses. Let's take an example like bridges. To avoid and prevent bridge collapses, architects use a method called Bridge Strengthening. Bridge Strengthening gives adhesive bonding of plates, to the cracked zones of the existing structure, and use active load control systems for under-strength bridges. In order to build strong bridges, the need of good materials is crucial. Some materials that architects use are; concrete, metal, steel, wood, and fabric. Wood, for example, is inexpensive, lightweight and easy to cut and interconnect using simple tools. That's why we build houses out of it. Concrete is efficient in compression, so we use it for foundations. For overall strength, however, it is hard to beat steel. That's why it is used so often in large skyscrapers and bridges. All of these materials have special features that can be used in building structures. Steel, wood, and metal are efficient in compression, while fabric is efficient in tension.
Interview Info.
I interviewed a person named, Joseph M. Legner. He works as a Structural Engineer here in Normal, Illinois. He suggested that we use any shape like a triangle, cylinder, or a rectangle. He recommended folding the manila folders in half and stacking them together to create a support for our structure. Building a structure is strong with a tension force than a compression force. And he suggested that our structure be short while it is wide.
Pictures of our fantastic group:
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| This is myself (far left) as a Strength Engineer. | This is a picture of C.B., and he did an awesome job of designing our structure. |
This is a picture of Sadie, (far right) and she did a
excellent job of getting all the materials together, helping to build our
wonderful structure.
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This is a picture of our Journalist, (far back) which she did a great job in giving suggestions to our Design Engineer. | This is a
picture of Kylor, (middle) our Height Engineer. He worked very hard in building our
structure.
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Reflections
Our design was considerably okay, because our height and weight met the overall requirements, and it could hold about 200 pounds. I anxiously estimated that our structure could hold about 320 lbs, but it failed to hold that amount. Probably, the first weight we put on the structure wasn't positioned well. We should have designed the structure so it would cover more area and be a little short and wide. I somehow ignored Joseph M. Legner's suggestion which I got his interview by e-mail two days after we constructed our structure, so I thought it was too late to change anything. A benefit of our design is that it looks and feels so strong that we estimated that it could hold close to five hundred pounds. But somehow alterations occurred, so our estimate couldn't beat our expectations. If we had a chance to rebuild another structure, we would build it with a strong infrastructure which is wide and relatively short. But, I would probably still go with a cylindrical shape.
Sources:
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/civilengineering/research/structures/structuralperformance
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_material