Structural Elements
Any structure is essentially made up of only a small number of different types of elements:
- Columns
- Beams
- Plates
- Arches
- Shells
- Catenaries
Many of these elements can be classified according to form (straight, plane / curve) and dimensionality (one-dimensional / two-dimensional):
| One-dimensional | Two-dimensional | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| straight | curve | plane | curve | |
| (predominantly) bending | beam | continuous arch | plate, concrete slab | lamina, dome |
| (predominant) tensile stress | rope | Catenary | shell | |
| (predominant) compression | pier, column | Load-bearing wall | ||
Read more about this topic: Structural Engineering
Famous quotes containing the words structural and/or elements:
“The reader uses his eyes as well as or instead of his ears and is in every way encouraged to take a more abstract view of the language he sees. The written or printed sentence lends itself to structural analysis as the spoken does not because the reader’s eye can play back and forth over the words, giving him time to divide the sentence into visually appreciated parts and to reflect on the grammatical function.”
—J. David Bolter (b. 1951)
“Kitsch is the daily art of our time, as the vase or the hymn was for earlier generations. For the sensibility it has that arbitrariness and importance which works take on when they are no longer noticeable elements of the environment. In America kitsch is Nature. The Rocky Mountains have resembled fake art for a century.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)