Constructing Environment Journal 1-07/03/2014 Name: John Chen Student Number: 691852
Progression In the beginning of the process, we remained a space for the doorway. The design of the door way is in a arch shape.
Activity: Compression In order to understand how loads are transferred in compression structure, I am asked to build a tower in group with blocks. The tower must can accommodate a horse, as well as withstand some weights.
Preparation The first problem for us is the structure of the tower, we were thinking several ways to create it and. In figure 1, this structure may be a easy and solid way, however, it will spend more blocks to build the tower. So we decided to remain some gap between two blocks, then built up a structure like figure 2., which is also strong under the force of compression, and we were going to create a square base as tower base.
figure 1
figure 2
When the height of the tower over the height of horse, we started to connect the edges of the doorway, which is the most difficult problem for us, because while we were adding a block to extend, the block would easily fall down as the weight force acting on it. To solve this problem, once we add a block on the edge, we immediately added a another block on the top, in order to balance the forces.
After we finished the doorway for our tower, we tested that the horse can successfully pass through the doorway. Then we just kept building the tower until the end time.
The test of the load capacity Our tower is proved to have the strong capacity to hold a heavy weight (4 tubs of block and totally about 20kg). When the tubs put on the tower, it is under a compression force and this structure has the ability to go against the compression force, then assists the tower to hold excessive amounts of weight.