Two way spanning — where it appears
Named by 2 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.
The load a beam is given is a decision
Every beam calculation on this site so far has started with a load per metre, handed over as though it were a property of the beam. It is not. It is the answer to a prior question nobody draws, and two defensible answers to it differ by sixty per cent on the same floor.
The slab that spans both ways
A panel supported on four sides sends its load in two directions at once, and the share is decided by a fourth power — so a panel a third longer than it is wide has already stopped being a two-way slab in any useful sense. What it does at collapse is a different calculation with a different answer.
Named alongside it
The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.
Load pathTributary areaCollapse mechanismDistributed loadFree bodyLoad descentOne way spanningPlastic hingeSelf weightSpan scalingUpper boundYield line