Constructing Environments ENVS10003 Semester 2 2014 A01-Logbook Construction Workshop (28/08) Our activity is to design and construct a structure that must span 1100mm. The maximum height of this structure is 400mm. The materials we used are the 4 pinewoods with different scales. Pinewood is softwood. Hammer, saw, angle tool and galvanized steel nails are provided.
Our intention is to build a structure that like a square and rectangular shape, but we run out of time so our structure is not successful in the end.
We decided to put a whole pinewood without any changes to be our foundation (span) in order to support the whole structure. We started to cut the pinewood into 8 identical pieces and combined them together with nails. Not like the studio activities, normally with our model making in the studio, we connected the balsa used joints but in the workshop we were using the real nails and hammer to do the connection.
When considering the stability of this structure, we decided to combined all the pieces first and then put the whole structure on the foundation (span) to ensure it will be more stable and not that easy to crack. Our structure is made to be compact so that it can deflect more. In order to disperse the loads, we connected the pieces from the top to the bottom. At start we decided to make it like triangle in order to carry more heavy loads, since we run out of time in the end, we only combined the one’s bottom part with another one’s bottom part for a completed structure.
We put the span in the middle of the structure to hold up and support the structure and loads can transfer to the span so that this structure is stronger and more stable. In the end of the session, our structure is cracked at around 50 kg due to our design failure and we did not expected it will test the pressure.
By comparing with other groups, one groups did the structure with square
bracing. The effect of this is to disperse the loads of the span between the top and the bottom of the beams. Timber that used in the top beam is not thick enough to bear the pressure and fail in the end.
Another group’s structure is quite different comparing to my group and the previous group. Instead of cutting into triangle pieces, they separated the structure into two identical parts as two big triangles with the small blocks fitting in into the triangles. Even though this design can carry loads and more stable but the part in the middle that connecting two triangles is very thin. That is the reason why this structure fail in the end.