Building Up: Columns and Buckling Episode 5 of Understanding the World's Greatest Structures
One of the most potent human aspirations supported by engineering is to build up. Learn how this has been done from antiquity to the present with columns: structural members that carry load primarily in compression. You'll also learn about buckling: the often catastrophic stability failure that occurs in columns with certain geometric characteristics.
Running Time
33 mins
Year
2011
Kanopy ID
1146777
Features
Professor at Lehigh University, Professor at United States Army War College, Professor at United States Military Academy - West Point, Stephen Ressler Ph.D
Languages
Subjects
Show More
Related videos
Understanding the World's Greatest Structures - Science and Innovation from Antiquity to Modernity Course
The Giza pyramids. Brunelleschi's dome. The Brooklyn Bridge. Each of these structures is iconic. They are visited by millions of people each year because they provoke a sense of awe and wonder. They are as beautiful to behold as they are fascinating to study: just how did the engineers who…
Building an Abbey: Rievaulx
Rievaulx is a twelfth-century Cistercian abbey set in a beautiful and secluded valley in North Yorkshire, England. Children from a local primary school are shown looking for clues to the design and engineering problems faced by the monks who built this large group of buildings. A great deal can be…
Building Across: Beams and Bending
Beams, combining tension and compression, are central to the second aspiration supported by engineering: building across long distances. As you survey beams from the primitive lintel over the Lion Gate at Mycenae to Norway's Raftsundet Bridge, you'll investigate scientific developments and transform your understanding of what makes this structural element…
The Great Skyscraper Race
The human aspiration to build upward reaches its climax with the skyscraper. Learn the story behind America's great skyscraper race and the increasingly sophisticated buildings it produced. Among the structural masterpieces you examine in depth are the Wainwright Building, the Chrysler Building, the Willis Tower, and the World Trade Center…
Suspension Bridges: The Battle of the Cable
After learning the science behind suspension bridges, begin your two-episode look at these structural marvels. Here, relive the Battle of the Cable, in which 19th-century engineers struggled over whether to build suspension cables from iron chains (as in England's Menai Strait Bridge) or steel wire (as in the Brooklyn Bridge).
Hagia Sophia
Learn about the dramatic past of this jewel of Constantinople, which served as a church for 1,000 years before becoming a mosque. Discover one of the world's most extraordinary architectural spaces, highlighting its awe-inspiring dome and grand interiors. Also linger over its superlative mosaics, carved columns, and decoration in colored…
The Rock-Hewn Churches of Ethiopia
Visit the monolithic churches of Lalibela, each completely carved from a single piece of rock, creating the illusion of columns and vaulted ceilings. Study their mysterious architectural details and their interior artworks, rich with religious symbolism, and learn about Ethiopia's links to the Old and New Testaments.
The Science of Structure - Forces in Balance
Explore how two types of external forces: loads (forces applied to structures) and reactions (forces developed at supports, in response to applied loads): act on structures such as Kansas City's Chouteau Bridge. Also, learn how these forces are related to the most important concept in engineering mechanics: equilibrium.
Romanesque at Its Best
Sainte Foy in Conques. Saint Mary Magdalene in Vezelay. Saint-Lazare at Autun. Focus on these three French churches as definitive examples of Romanesque style and decoration. In particular, investigate how sculptural masterpieces on columns and over entrances rendered biblical stories into simple, visually arresting messages to instruct the faithful.
Post Ductility - Metals in Architecture and Structural Engineering
Filmed in September/October 2009 at the third Columbia Conference on architecture, engineering and materials.
Few concepts are as central in structural engineering as the ability of a material to sustain plastic deformation under tensile stress. The standardization of historically known deformation limits or ductile properties in most materials allows architects…
Engineered Transparency - Glass in Architecture and Structural Engineering
Filmed at an international conference of prominent architects and engineers at Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture in September 2007.
After its role in the last century's call to a radical new architecture and urban life, glass architecture is today more ubiquitous than ever. A highly engineered product, glass has…
Loads and Structural Systems
Structures are heavily influenced by the loads they're designed to carry. First, take a closer look at the most important loads structures must resist, including traffic loads and earthquake loads. Then, using the historic iron building at Watervliet Arsenal in New York, analyze how loads are actually transmitted through structural…
Comments (1)
loved it all