Structural Engineering & Statics
where the load goes
Concept

Masonry — where it appears

Units laid in mortar, which carries compression well and tension not at all. Its structural behaviour is therefore geometric: whether an arch, a wall or a pier stands is decided by where a line of thrust lies rather than by any stress the material reaches.

Named by 2 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

T = 40 kN at 25°no pinnaclee = 0.503 moutside the middle thirdthe line stays in the stone · σ = 351 kPa at the toe

The weight that makes it safer

Every load in this collection makes a structure worse. A pinnacle does not. A masonry pier fails when the line of compression leaves the stonework, and adding weight at the top rotates that line back towards the vertical without adding anything the pier cannot carry — so the stone is not being strengthened, it is being aimed.

structures · buttress 00.10.20.30.40.500.20.40.60.81eccentricity ÷ thicknesscapacity ÷ squash loadthe kern66.7% at the kernno tension only1 − 2e/tslenderness 14.0adds e_a = 17.4 mmEuler is 10×above all of this

It does not buckle, it runs out of width

Every stability failure in this collection is a member that could have carried tension deciding to go sideways instead. Masonry cannot carry tension, and its failure under an eccentric load is not a bifurcation at all — the bearing area simply shrinks until it runs out. The capacity is exactly linear in the eccentricity, Euler's load is ten times anything allowed, and no material property appears until the very end.

stability · wall slenderness

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

Bearing stressEccentricityEquilibriumKernNo tensionSelf weightStabilityArchBucklingButtressCapacity reductionEffective height

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