Engineers love these things because they’re real easy to design, and very efficient in usable volume vs materials (which is why they’re used for every warehouse/big store/factory)
Obviously not great for living in or anything but that’s the joke :)
Very interesting! I never thought of that before. On the building pictured, which would take least effort to double the storage space - making it twice as long, wide or tall?
Do you really mean “effort” (and if so, whose?) or do you mean cost? The other reply is correct that making it twice as long would minimize the need to redesign, but without doing the math (I am a civil engineer, but I can’t be bothered) I suspect making it twice as tall would use the least additional materials and therefore be cheapest. (That assumes taking advantage of the extra height for storage is the client’s problem, not the engineer’s. Having to put in a second story floor would change things.)
Yeah I guess I was thinking about cost when I said effort. I figured maybe building up would also provide more design challenges to keep the thing from collapsing, or is that negligible?
You’ll have a little bit more wind loading and you may have to put in a little bit of thought into the size and bracing of the vertical support columns to make sure the extra length doesn’t risk buckling, but that’s pretty much it.
Mind explaining why this is peak performance? ELI5 if possible
Engineers love these things because they’re real easy to design, and very efficient in usable volume vs materials (which is why they’re used for every warehouse/big store/factory)
Obviously not great for living in or anything but that’s the joke :)
Very interesting! I never thought of that before. On the building pictured, which would take least effort to double the storage space - making it twice as long, wide or tall?
Do you really mean “effort” (and if so, whose?) or do you mean cost? The other reply is correct that making it twice as long would minimize the need to redesign, but without doing the math (I am a civil engineer, but I can’t be bothered) I suspect making it twice as tall would use the least additional materials and therefore be cheapest. (That assumes taking advantage of the extra height for storage is the client’s problem, not the engineer’s. Having to put in a second story floor would change things.)
Yeah I guess I was thinking about cost when I said effort. I figured maybe building up would also provide more design challenges to keep the thing from collapsing, or is that negligible?
You’ll have a little bit more wind loading and you may have to put in a little bit of thought into the size and bracing of the vertical support columns to make sure the extra length doesn’t risk buckling, but that’s pretty much it.
Twice as long - all the structural elements are the same, you just line up more of them