Cable-Stayed Structures and Bridges Explained
Drive across a modern long-span bridge and the chances are that the deck is held up by a fan of straight steel cables running…
Category: Structure
Concrete · seismic · engineering
Shell Structures Explained: Domes, Vaults and Hypars
An eggshell is a fraction of a millimetre thick yet surprisingly hard to crush in your palm. The reason is the same one that…
Tensile and Membrane Structures Explained
Stretch a fabric sheet tight between a few high and low points and you have the essence of a tensile structure: a roof that…
Space Frame Structures: How They Span Long Roofs
When you stand under the roof of an airport concourse, a sports hall or a large exhibition centre and look up at a regular…
Long-Span Structures Explained by an Engineer
A long span structure covers a large clear area without internal columns, creating the open, uninterrupted space needed for sports halls, aircraft hangars, exhibition…
Tube Structural Systems in Tall Buildings Explained
A tube structure treats the entire perimeter of a tall building as a single hollow cantilever, so the outer skin of columns and beams…
Core Walls in High-Rise Buildings Explained
A core wall is the central reinforced-concrete enclosure, usually wrapped around the lift shafts and stairwells, that acts as the structural backbone of a…
Tuned Mass Dampers Explained for Tall Buildings
A tuned mass damper is a large, carefully tuned mass mounted high in a building or structure that moves out of phase with the…
Outrigger Structural Systems in Tall Buildings
The outrigger system is one of the most effective and widely used structural arrangements for tall buildings. It solves a basic limitation of a…
Structural Systems for Tall Buildings Explained
As a building grows taller, the engineering challenge shifts. For a low-rise structure, gravity load governs the design and lateral forces are a secondary…
Progressive Collapse Explained for Buildings
Progressive collapse is one of the most serious failure modes in structural engineering: the situation where the local failure of a single element triggers…
Diaphragm Action in Structures Explained
A structural diaphragm is the part of a building most people never think about, yet it does much of the quiet work of keeping…