Structures

or Why things don't fall down

Structures
or Why things don't fall down
J.E.Gordon
University of Reading
Reading, England

PLENUM PRESS NEW YORK AND LONDON

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Gordon, James Edward, 1913Structures.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Structures, Theory of. 2. Structural engineering. I. Title.
TA645.G65
624'.17
78-19068

ISBN-13: 978-1-4615-9076-7
DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4615-9074-3

e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4615-9074-3

Copyright J. E. Gordon, 1978

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1978
First published by Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Plenum Press, New York is a division of Plenum Publishing Corporation
227 West 17th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any meaIt's, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher

To my grandchildren,
Timothy and Alexander

Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay

human arrogance on every side may well be
reckoned our ignorance ofthe most common objects
and effects, a defect of which we become more
sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and
inactive minds confoundfamiliarity with knowledge
and conceive themselves informed ofthe whole
nature ofthings when they are shown their form or
told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content
with superficial views, harasses himselfwith fruitless
curiosity, and still, as he inquires more,perceives
only that he knows less.

Samuel Johnson, The Idler (Saturday, 25

November 1758)

Contents

List of Plates
Foreword
Acknowledgements
1 The structures in our lives - or how to
communicate with engineers
Part One The difficult birth of the science of elasticity
2 Why structures carry loads - or the springiness
o/solids
3 The invention of stress and strain - or Baron
Cauchy and the decipherment 0/ Young's
~~~

4 Designing for safety - or can you really tr~t

strength calculations?
5 Strain energy and modem fracture mechanics
- with a digression on bows, catapults and
kangaroos
Part Two Tension structures
6 Tension structures and pressure vessels
- with some remarks on boilers, bats and
Chinese junks
7 Joints, fastenings and people - also about
creep and chariot wheels
8 Soft materials and living structures - or how
to design a worm
Part Three Compression and bending structures
9 Walls, arches and dams - or cloud-capp'd
towers and the stability 0/masonry
10 Something about bridges - or Saint Bhzezet
and Saint Isambard
11 The advantage of being a beam - with
observations on roofs, tr~ses and masts

11
13
15
17

33

60

70

113
132

149

171
198
210

10 Contents

12 The mysteries of shear and torsion - or Polaris

and the bias-cut nightie
24S
13 The various ways of failing in compression
- or sandwiches, skulls and Dr Euler
'Il2
Part Four And the consequence was
14 The philosophy of design - or the shape,
the weight and the cost
303
15 A chapter of accidents - a study in -sin, error
and metalfatigue
16 Efficiency and aesthetics - or the world we
have to live in
Appendix 1 Handbooks and formulae
Appendix 2 Beam theory
Appendix 3 Torsion
Appendix 4 The efficiency of columns and panels under
compression loads
Suggestions for further study
Index

324
354
374

377
384
385
388

391

List of Plates

1 Bent masonry column in Salisbury CathedraL

2 Stress concentration at crack tip (courtesy
Dr Richard Chaplin).
3 'Aneurism' in cylindrical balloon.
4 Section of artery wall tissue (courtesy
Dr Julian Vincent).
5 Corbelled vault at Tiryns.
6 Semi-corbelled postern gate at Tiryns.
7 Clare bridge, Cambridge (courtesy Professor
Adrian Horridge, F.R.S.).

a Temple of the Olympian Zeus, Athens.

9 Skeletons of gibbon and gorilla.
10 Maidenhead railway bridge.
11 Menai suspension bridge (courtesy

Institution of Civil Engineers).

12 Severn suspension bridge (courtesy British

Steel Corporation).
13 King's College Chapel, Cambridge.
14 H.M.S. Victory (courtesy H.M.S. Victory
Museum. Crown copyright).

15 American trestle bridge.

16 Britannia bridge (courtesy Institution of
Civil Engineers).

nand 1a Vionnet dresses (courtesy Mrs Nethercot

and Vogue magazine).

12 List of Plates

19 Wagner tension field (courtesy The Fairey

Company Ltd).
20 Tacoma Narrows bridge (courtesy Institution
of Civil Engineers).
21 Portsmouth block-making machinery
(Crown copyright. Science Museum, London).
22 Watson steam yacht (courtesy G. L. Watson
& Co. Ltd).
23 The Parthenon.
24 The Lion Gate, Mycenae.

Foreword

I am very much aware that it is an act of extreme rashness to

attempt to write an elementary book about structures. Indeed it is
only when the subject is stripped of its mathematics that one
begins to realize how difficult it is to pin down and describe those
structural concepts which are often called' elementary'; by which
I suppose we mean 'basic' or 'fundamental'. Some of the omissions and oversimplifications are intentional but no doubt some
of them are due to my own brute ignorance and lack of understanding of the subject.
Although this volume is more or less a sequel to The New
Science of Strong Materials it can be read as an entirely separate
book in its own right. For this reason a certain amount of repetition has been unavoidable in the earlier chapters.
I have to thank a great many people for factual information,
suggestions and for stimulating and sometimes heated discussions.
Among the living, my colleagues at Reading University have been
generous with help, notably Professor W. D. Biggs (Professor of
Building Technology), Dr Richard Chaplin, Dr Giorgio
Jeronimidis, Dr Julian Vincent and Dr Henry Blyth; Professor
Anthony Flew, Professor of Philosophy, made useful suggestions
about the last chapter. I am also grateful to Mr John Bartlett,
Consultant Neurosurgeon at the Brook Hospital. Professor T. P.
Hughes of the University of the West Indies has been helpful
about rockets and many other things besides. My secretary,
Mrs Jean Collins, was a great help in times of trouble. Mrs
Nethercot of Vogue was kind to me about dressmaking. Mr
Gerald Leach and also many of the editorial staff of Penguins
have exercised 'their accustomed patience and helpfulness.
Among the dead, lowe a great deal to Dr Mark Pryor - lately
of Trinity College, Cambridge - especially for discussions about
biomechanics which extended over a period of nearly thirty years.
Lastly, for reasons which must surely be obvious, lowe a humble
oblation to Herodotus, once a citizen of Halicamassus.

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge with gratitude permission to quote from various

authors. For Douglas English's poem, Punch Publications Ltd; for
quotations from Weston Martyr's The Southseaman, Messrs. William
Blackwood Ltd; for the quotation from Rudyard Kipling's The Ship
that Found Herself; Messrs. A. P. Watt & Son and the executors of the
late Mrs Bambridge and the Macmillan Co. of London and Basingstoke.
Also to Mr H. L. Cox for the quotation from his book The Design of
Structures ofLeast Weight. The quotations from the New English Bible
(Second Edition 1970) are by kind permission of the Oxford and
Cambridge University Presses.
We are also most grateful to all those named in the List of Plates who
have so kindly provided illustrations and given permission to reproduce
them.
We have received a great deal of help from many people and organizations with regard to both quotations and illustrations. If we have, in
any instance, failed to make proper acknowledgement, we offer oUr
apologies.