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Structural Engineering
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Contents
1. Structural Engineering…………………………………………………………………………………………………3
2. Etymology……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3
3. The Structural Engineer……………………………………………………………………………………………….3
3.1 Jobs of a Structural Engineer
3.2 Requirements to become a Structural Engineer
4. History………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..4
4.1 Timeline
4.2 Structural Engineering Wonders
4.3 Structural Engineering Disasters
5. Specializations…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….14
5.1 Building structures
5.2 Earthquake engineering structures
5.3 Civil engineering structures
6. Structural elements……………………………………………………………………………………………………16
6.1 Columns
6.2 Beams
6.3 Trusses
6.4 Plates
6.5 Shells
6.6 Arches
6.7 Catenaries
7. Materials……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………18
7.1 Iron
7.2 Concrete
7.3 Aluminum
7.4 Composites
7.5 Masonry
7.6 Timber
7.7 Other structural materials
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1. STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING

Structural engineering is a specialty within the field of civil engineering that

focuses on the framework of structures, and on designing those structures to withstand
the stresses and pressures of their environment and remain safe, stable and secure
throughout their use. In other words, structural engineers make sure that buildings
don't fall, and bridges don't collapse(Lucas, 2014).
Structural engineers are most commonly involved in the design of buildings and
large nonbuilding structures, but they can also be involved in the design of machinery,
medical equipment, vehicles or any item where structural integrity affects the item's
function or safety (New World Encyclopedia, 2017).

2. ETYMOLOGY

The term structural derives from the Latin word structus, which is "to pile, build
assemble." The first use of the term structure was c.1440. The term engineer derives
from the old French term engin, meaning "skill, cleverness" and also "war machine."
This term in turn derives from the Latin word ingenium, which means "inborn qualities,
talent," and is constructed of in—"in"—gen, the root of gignere, meaning "to beget,
produce." The term engineer is related to genius.
The term structural engineer is generally applied only to those who have
completed a degree in structural engineering. Structural engineering is usually
considered a specialty within civil engineering, but it can also be studied in its own right.
The term engineer in isolation varies widely in its use and application, and can,
depending on the geographical location of its use, refer to many different technical and
creative professions in its common usage (New World Encyclopedia, 2017).

3. THE STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

3.1 JOBS OF A STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

Structural engineers are responsible for engineering design and analysis. Entry
level structural engineers may design the individual structural elements of a structure,
for example the beams, column and floor of a building. More experienced engineers
would be responsible for the structural design and integrity of an entire system, such as
a building (Heynman,1999).
Structural engineers often work alongside civil engineers and architects as part
of a construction team. "In a nutshell," according to the Institution of Structural
Engineers, "if astructure was a human body, then the architect would be concerned with
the body shape and appearance, and the structural engineer would be concerned with
the skeleton and sinews (Lucas, 2014)."
The role of a structural engineer today involves a significant understanding of
both static and dynamic loading, and the structures that are available to resist them.
The complexity of modern structures often requires a great deal of creativity from the
engineer to ensure the structures support and resist the loads they are subjected to. A
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structural engineer will typically have a four or five-year undergrad degree, followed by
a minimum of three years of professional practice before being considered fully
qualified (New World Encyclopedia, 2017).

According to MyMajors.com, a structural engineer's job includes:

 Analyzing blueprints, maps, reports, and topographical and geological data;

 Estimating the cost and quantities of materials, equipment and labor;
 Computing load and grade requirements, water �ow rates and material stress
factorsto determine design specifications;
 Inspecting project sites to monitor progress and ensure the project is
beingconstructed according to design specifications.

3.2 REQUIREMENTS TO BECOME A STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

Structural engineers are licensed or accredited by different learned societies and

regulatory body around the world (for example, the Institution of Structural Engineers in
the UK).In the Philippines, the educationneeded is usually aDegree in Civil
Engineeringand a Masters in Structural Engineering (Pay Scale, 2018).
Depending on the degree course they have studied and/or the jurisdiction they
are seeking licensure in, they may be accredited (or licensed) as just structural
engineers, or as civil engineers, or as both civil and structural engineers (New World
Encyclopedia, 2017).
The average pay of a structural engineer in the Philippines is 385, 287 Pesos per
year but it can vary from 160 000 to 830 000 (Pay Scale, 2018).

4. HISTORY

Structural engineering dates to 2700 B.C.E. when the step pyramid for Pharaoh
Djoser was built by Imhotep, the first engineer in history known by name. Pyramids
were the most common major structures built by ancient civilizations because the
structural form of a pyramid is inherently stable and can be almost infinitely scaled (as
opposed to most other structural forms, which cannot be linearly increased in size in
proportion to increased loads) (Hewson, 2003).
Throughout ancient and medieval history most architectural design and
construction was carried out by artisans, such as stonemasons and carpenters, rising to
the role of master builder. No theory of structures existed, and understanding of how
structures stood up was extremely limited, and based almost entirely on empirical
evidence of 'what had worked before'. Knowledge was retained by guilds and seldom
supplanted by advances. Structures were repetitive, and increases in scale were
incremental.
No record exists of the first calculations of the strength of structural members or
the behavior of structural material, but the profession of structural engineer only really
took shape with the Industrial Revolution and the re-invention of concrete. The physical
sciences underlying structural engineering began to be understood in the Renaissance
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and have since developed into computer-based applications pioneered in the 1970s
(Hewson, 2003).

4.1 TIMELINE

 1452–1519 Leonardo da Vinci made many contributions

 1638: Galileo Galilei published the book Two New Sciences in which he
examined the failure of simple structures
 1660: Hooke's law by Robert Hooke
 1687: Isaac Newton published Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
which contains the Newton's laws of motion
 1750: Euler–Bernoulli beam equation
 1700–1782: Daniel Bernoulli introduced the principle of virtual work
 1707–1783: Leonhard Euler developed the theory of buckling of columns
 1826: Claude-Louis Navier published a treatise on the elastic behaviors of
structures
 1873: Carlo Alberto Castigliano presented his dissertation
"Intornoaisistemielastici", which contains his theorem for computing
displacement as partial derivative of the strain energy. This theorem includes
the method of "least work" as a special case
 1874: Otto Mohr formalized the idea of a statically indeterminate structure.
 1922: Timoshenko corrects the Euler-Bernoulli beam equation
 1936: Hardy Cross' publication of the moment distribution method, an
important innovation in the design of continuous frames.
 1941: Alexander Hrennikoff solved the discretization of plane elasticity
problems using a lattice framework
 1942: R. Courant divided a domain into finite subregions
 1956: J. Turner, R. W. Clough, H. C. Martin, and L. J. Topp's paper on the
"Stiffness and Deflection of Complex Structures" introduces the name
"finiteelement method" and is widely recognized as the first comprehensive
treatment of the method as it is known today

(Hosford, 2005)
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4.2 STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING WONDERS

THREE GORGES DAM (2003)

The world's largest dam, as well as largest hydroelectric power plant, stands tall
at 185 m. Its name comes from the fact that it floods three rivers, the Qutang, Wu Xia,
and Xiling. The hydroelectric plant is built inside the walls of the structure, producing a
total of 4.7 billion kWh each year. During construction, builders used 27.2 million cubic
metres of concrete. That's enough concrete to fill 10,200 Olympic sized swimming pools.

JEDDAH TOWER (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

Formerly known as the Kingdom tower, crews began construction on this

building in Spring 2013. When completed, the Jeddah Tower is estimated to cost 1.2
billion US dollars and top the charts as the world's tallest building. Originally engineers
sought to build the structure as high as 1 mile (1.6 km). However, in the design phase, it
was scaled back to 3281 ft (1000 m). Even with the downsizing, this building will beat
out the current tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, by 591 ft (180m) when completed.
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CARLSBAD DESALINATION PLANT (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

Water is becoming one of the most precious resources on the planet. In

southern California specifically, fresh drinking water is hard to come by. Many cities in
the area pump drinking water from hundreds of miles away. As the price of fresh water
has gone up, desalination has become a more viable option for water sourcing. The
Carlsbad Plant aims to take the salt out of 50 million gallons per day and supply San
Diego County residents with drinking water.

DANYANG-KUNSHAN GRAND BRIDGE (2010)

This 102.4 mile (164.8 km) bridge holds the title of world's longest, and it took
four years to construct. Unlike most bridges, it is built in a viaduct design, spanning
many valleys and connecting the cities of Shanghai and Nanjing in the Jiangsu province
of China. The railway that the bridge connects spans 818 mi (1317 km), which is an
engineering feat of its own.
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VENICE TIDE BARRIER PROJECT (2015)

As one of the most picturesque cities in the world, Venice, Italy is shrouded in
beauty, but the city faces major engineering problems. The city has been pummeled in
recent years by flooding from rain as well as rising sea levels. Seeking to keep the city
safe, engineers devised a unique method of using rows of mobile gates to keep flood
waters at bay. The barriers have the capability to seal off the city of Venice from the
rising tides. This project, while not being tremendous in scale, captivates engineers with
its unique design and importance to the protection of this famous city.

DELAWARE AQUEDUCT (1945)

New York City is a hub for tourism, business, and the arts, but it also is home to
roughly 8.5 million people. Like all heavily populated areas, the issue of fresh water
supply comes into question. The Delaware Aqueduct, while possibly one of the least
identifiable projects on this list, is not lacking in its civil engineering wonder. Spanning a
total of 137 km, this major aqueduct holds the title of longest tunnel in the world.
Almost 50,000,000 cubic meters of water is supplied through this tunnel each day to the
U.S.'s largest city. This accounts for over half of the total water supply, making this
project vital to the lives of millions of American citizens.
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LAKE KARIBA (1963)

By volume, Lake Kariba is the largest man-made reservoir in the world, sitting
miles north of the Indian Ocean on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia. Covering a
total area of 5580 square kilometers this lake has a max capacity of 185 cubic km of
water. This is so much water that the excess weight is theorized to have caused over 20
earthquakes in the area since its construction. Like all man-made lakes, this volume of
water is held back by a large dam, pictured below. If the dam were to fail, millions would
lose their lives and damage from the resulting flood would extend through multiple
countries.(Interesting Engineering, 2016)

4.2 STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING DISASTERS

DEE BRIDGE

On May 24, 1847, the Dee Bridge collapsed as a train passed over it, with the loss
of 5 lives. It was designed by Robert Stephenson, using cast iron girders reinforced with
wrought iron struts. The bridge collapse was subject to one of the first formal inquiries
into a structural failure. The result of the enquiry was that the design of the structure
was fundamentally flawed, as the wrought iron did not reinforce the cast iron at all, and
due to repeated flexing it suffered a brittle failure due to fatigue (Feld, 1997).
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FIRST TAY RAIL BRIDGE

The Dee bridge disaster was followed by a number of cast iron bridge collapses,
including the collapse of the first Tay Rail Bridge on December 28, 1879. Like the Dee
bridge, the Tay collapsed when a train passed over it causing 75 people to lose their
lives. The bridge failed because of poorly made cast iron, and the failure of the designer
Thomas Bouch to consider wind loading on the bridge. The collapse resulted in cast iron
largely being replaced by steel construction, and a complete redesign in 1890 of the
Forth Railway Bridge. As a result, the fourth Bridge was the third entirely steel bridge in
the world (Petroski, 19964.

FIRST TACOMA NARROWS BRIDGE

The 1940 collapse of

Galloping Gertie, as the
original Tacoma Narrows
Bridge is known, is
sometimes characterized in
physics textbooks as a
classical example of
resonance; although, this
description is misleading.
The catastrophic vibrations
that destroyed the bridge
were not due to simple
mechanical resonance, but
to a more complicated
oscillation between the bridge and winds passing through it, known as aeroelastic
flutter. Robert H. Scanlan, father of the field of bridge aerodynamics, wrote an article
about this misunderstanding. This collapse, and the research that followed, led to an
increased understanding of wind/structure interactions. Several bridges were altered
following the collapse to prevent a similar event occurring again. The only fatality was
"Tubby" the dog (Virdi, 2000).
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RONAN POINT
On May 16, 1968, the 22 story
residential tower Ronan Point in the
London borough of Newham
collapsed when a relatively small gas
explosion on the 18th floor caused a
structural wall panel to be blown
away from the building. The tower
was constructed of precast concrete,
and the failure of the single panel
caused one entire corner of the
building to collapse. The panel was
able to be blown out because there
was insufficient reinforcement steel
passing between the panels. This also
meant that the loads carried by the
panel could not be redistributed to
other adjacent panels, because there
was no route for the forces to follow.
As a result of the collapse, building regulations were overhauled to prevent
"disproportionate collapse," and the understanding of precast concrete detailing was
greatly advanced. Many similar buildings were altered or demolished as a result of the
collapse (Feld, 1997).

HYATT REGENCY WALKWAY

On July 17, 1981, two suspended walkways through the lobby of the Hyatt
Regency in Kansas City, Missouri ,collapsed, killing 114 people at a tea dance. The
collapse was due to a late change in design, altering the method in which the rods
supporting the walkways were connected to them, and inadvertently doubling the
forces on the connection. The failure highlighted the need for good communication
between design engineers and contractors, and rigorous checks on designs and
especially on contractor proposed design changes. The failure is a standard case study
on engineering courses around the world, and is used to teach the importance of ethics
in engineering (Feld, 1997).
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OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING

On April 19, 1995, the nine story concrete framed Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building in Oklahoma was struck by a huge car bomb causing partial collapse, resulting
in the deaths of 168 people. The bomb, though large, caused a significantly
disproportionate collapse of the structure. The bomb blew all the glass off the front of
the building and completely shattered a ground floor reinforced concrete column (see
brisance). At second storey level a wider column spacing existed, and loads from upper
story columns were transferred into fewer columns below by girders at second floor
level. The removal of one of the lower storey columns caused neighboring columns to
fail due to the extra load, eventually leading to the complete collapse of the central
portion of the building. The bombing was one of the first to highlight the extreme forces
that blast loading from terrorism can exert on buildings, and led to increased
consideration of terrorism in structural design of buildings.

9/11

On September 11, 2001,

the two towers of the World
Trade Center in New York were
struck by airplanes. Though the
towers initially withstood the
impact, the jet fuel on board
caused fires which ultimately
caused the buildings to collapse
due to buckling failures in the
perimeter gravity frame. The
force of the explosion blew off
the fireproofing material on the
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floor joists. These floor joists then weakened under the intense heat and collapsed.
Then some of the floors had to support the weight of not only their own surfaces but
that of the collapsed floors from above as well all the time being weakened by the fire.
Once too many floors collapsed, the distance between lateral bracing of the columns
became too great and the columns collapsed in a progressive manner. A progressive
collapse is when a collapse in part of the structure causes a collapse in another part until
there is a chain reaction that ultimately brings down the whole structure. Both towers
collapsed in their entirety. The significant investigations into the collapse led to changes
in the way tall buildings are designed to withstand both fire and terrorism, and the
methods in which people escape in emergencies.

5. SPECIALIZATIONS

5.1 BUILDING STRUCTURES

Structural building engineering includes all structural engineering related to the

design of buildings. It is the branch of structural engineering that is close to architecture.
Structural building engineering is primarily driven by the creative manipulation of
materials and forms and the underlying mathematical and scientific principles to
achieve an end which fulfills its functional requirements and is structurally safe when
subjected to all the loads it could reasonably be expected to experience, while being
economical and practical to construct. This is subtly different to architectural design,
which is driven by the creative manipulation of materials and forms, mass, space,
volume, texture and light to achieve an end which is aesthetic, functional and often
artistic (Hosford, 2005).
The architect is usually the lead designer on buildings, with a structural engineer
employed as a sub-consultant. The degree to which each discipline actually leads the
design depends heavily on the type of structure. Many structures are structurally simple
and led by architecture, such as multi-storey office buildings and housing, while other
structures, such as tensile structures, shells, and gridshells are heavily dependent on
their form for their strength, and the engineer may have a more significant influence on
the form, and hence much of the aesthetic, than the architect. Between these two
extremes, structures such as stadia, museums and skyscrapers are complex both
architecturally and structurally, and a successful design is a collaboration of equals. The
structural design for a building must ensure that the building is able to stand up safely,
able to function without excessive ejaculations or movements which may cause fatigue
of structural elements, cracking or failure of fixtures, fittings or partitions, or discomfort
for occupants. It must account for movements and forces due to temperature, creep,
cracking, and imposed loads. It must also ensure that the design is practically buildable
within acceptable manufacturing tolerances of the materials. It must allow the
architecture to work, and the building services to fit within the building and function (air
conditioning, ventilation, smoke extract, electrics, lighting, and so on). The structural
design of a modern building can be extremely complex, and often requires a large team
to complete.
Structural engineering specialties for buildings include: Earthquake engineering,
Roof engineering and Tower engineering.
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5.2 EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING STRUCTURES

Earthquake engineering structures are those engineered to withstand various types

of hazardous earthquake exposures at the sites of their particular location. Earthquake
engineering is treating its subject structures like defensive fortifications in military
engineering but for the warfare on earthquakes. Both earthquake and military general
design principles are similar: be ready to slow down or mitigate the advance of a
possible attacker. The main objectives of earthquake engineering are:

 Understand interaction of structures with the shaky ground.

 Foresee the consequences of possible earthquakes. Design, construct and
maintain structures to perform at earthquake exposure up to the expectations
and in compliance with building codes.

Earthquake engineering or earthquake-proof structure does not, necessarily, means

extremely strong and expensive one like El Castillo pyramid at Chichen Itza shown above.
Now, the most powerful and budgetary tool of the earthquake engineering is base
isolation which pertains to the passive structural vibration control technologies.

5.3 CIVIL ENGINEERING STRUCTURES

Civil structural engineering includes all structural engineering related to the built
environment. It includes:
 Bridges  Railways
 Dams  Retaining structures
 Earthworks  and walls
 Foundations  Roads
 Offshore structures  Tunnels
 Pipelines  Waterways
 Power stations
The structural engineer is the lead designer on these structures, and often the sole
designer. In the design of structures such as these, structural safety is of paramount
importance (in the US, designs for damns, nuclear power plants and bridges must be
signed off by a chartered engineer). Civil engineering structures are often subjected to
very extreme forces, such as large variations in temperature, dynamic loads such as
waves or traffic, or high pressures from water or compressed gases. They are also often
constructed in corrosive environments, such as at sea, in industrial facilities or below
ground.

6. STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS
6.1 COLUMNS
Columns are elements that carry only axial
force—either tension or compression—or both
axial force and bending (which is technically
called a beam-column but practically, just a
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column). The design of a column must check the axial capacity of the element, and the
buckling capacity.
The buckling capacity is the capacity of the element to withstand the propensity to
buckle. Its capacity depends upon its geometry, material, and the effective length of the
column, which depends upon the restraint conditions at the top and bottom of the
column. The effective length is K*L where is the real length of the column. The capacity
of a column to carry axial load depends on the degree of bending it is subjected to, and
vice versa. This is represented on an interaction chart and is a complex non-linear
relationship.
6.2 BEAMS
A beam may be: Cantilevered (supported
at one end only with a fixed connection); Simply
supported (supported vertically at each end but
able to rotate at the supports); Continuous
(supported by three or more supports); A
combination of the above (ex. supported at one
end and in the middle); Beams are elements
which carry pure bending only. Bending causes
one section of a beam (divided along its length)
to go into compression and the other section
into tension. The compression section must be
designed to resist buckling and crushing, while
the tension section must be able to adequately
resist the tension.
6.3 STRUTS AND TIES
A truss is a structure comprising two types of structural element, i.e. struts and
ties. A strut is a relatively lightweight column and a tie is a slender element designed to
withstand tension forces. In a pin-jointed truss (where all joints are essentially hinges),
the individual elements of a truss theoretically carry only axial load. From experiments it
can be shown that even trusses with rigid joints will behave as though the joints are
pinned. Trusses are usually utilized to span large distances, where it would be
uneconomical and unattractive to use solid beams (Dym, 1997).
6.4 PLATES
Plates carry bending in two directions. A concrete flat slab is an example of a
plate. Plates are understood by using continuum mechanics, but due to the complexity
involved they are most often designed using a codified empirical approach, or computer
analysis. They can also be designed with yield line theory, where an assumed collapse
mechanism is analyzed to give an upper bound on the collapse load (see Plasticity). This
is rarely used in practice.
6.5 SHELLS
Shells derive their strength from their form, and carry forces in compression in
two directions. A dome is an example of a shell. They can be designed by making a
hanging chain model, which will act as a catenary in pure tension, and inverting the form
to achieve pure compression.
6.6 ARCHES
Arches carry forces in compression in one direction only, which is why it is appropriate
to build arches out of masonry. They are designed by ensuring that the line of thrust of
the force remains within the depth of the arch.
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6.7 CATENARIES
Catenaries derive their strength from their form, and carry transverse forces in pure
tension by deflecting (just as a tightrope will sag when someone walks on it). They are
almost always cable or fabric structures. A fabric structure acts as a catenary in two
directions.

7. MATERIALS
Structural engineering depends on the knowledge of materials and their properties, in
order to understand how different materials support and resist loads.Common
structural materials are:
7.1 IRON
7.1.1 WROUGHT IRON
Wrought iron is the simplest form of iron, and is almost pure iron (typically less than
0.15 percent carbon). It usually contains some slag. Its uses are almost entirely obsolete,
and it is no longer commercially produced. Wrought iron is very poor in fires. It is
ductile, malleable and tough. It does not corrode as easily as steel.

7.1.2 CAST IRON

Cast iron is a brittle form of iron which is weaker in tension than in compression. It has a
relatively low melting point, good fluidity, castability, excellent machinability and wear
resistance. Though almost entirely replaced by steel in building structures, cast irons
have become an engineering material with a wide range of applications, including pipes,
machine and car parts. Cast iron retains high strength in fires, despite its low melting
point. It is usually around 95 percent iron, with between 2.1-4 percent carbon and
between 1-3 percent silicon. It does not corrode as easily as steel.
7.1.3 STEEL
Steel is a iron alloy with between 0.2 and 1.7 percent carbon. Steel is used extremely
widely in all types of structures, due to its relatively low cost, high strength to weight
ratio, and speed of construction. Steel is a ductile material, which will behave elastically
until it reaches yield (point 2 on the stress-strain curve), when it becomes plastic and
will fail in a ductile manner (large strains, or extensions, before fracture at point 3 on
the curve). Steel is equally strong in tension and compression. Steel is weak in fires, and
must be protected in most buildings. Because of its high strength to weight ratio, steel
buildings typically have low thermal mass, and require more energy to heat (or cool)
than similar concrete buildings. The elastic modulus of steel is approximately 205 GPa
Steel is very prone to corrosion.
7.1.4 STAINLESS STEEL
Stainless steel is an iron-carbon alloy with a minimum of 10.5% chromium content.
There are different types of stainless steel, containing different proportions of iron,
carbon, molybdenum nickel It has similar structural properties to steel, although its
strength varies significantly. It is rarely used for primary structure, and more for
architectural finishes and building cladding. It is highly resistant to corrosion and
staining (Blank, 1993).
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7.2 CONCRETE
Concrete is used extremely widely in building and civil engineering structures, due to its
low cost, flexibility, durability, and high strength. It also has high resistance to fire.
Concrete is a brittle material and it is strong in compression and very weak in tension. It
behaves non-linearly at all times. Because it has essentially zero strength in tension, it is
almost always used as reinforced concrete, a composite material. It is a mixture of sand
and water. It is placed in a mold, or form, as a liquid, and then it sets (goes off), due to a
chemical reaction between the water and cement. The hardening of the concrete is
called curing. The reaction is exothermic (gives off heat). Concrete increases in strength
continually from the day it is cast. Assuming it is not cast under water or in constantly
100 percent relative humidity, it shrinks over time as it dries out, and it deforms over
time due to a phenomenon called creep. Its strength depends highly on how it is mixed,
poured, cast, compacted, cured (kept wet while setting), and whether or not any
admixtures were used in the mix. It can be cast into any shape that a form can be made
for. Its color, quality, and finish depend upon the complexity of the structure, the
material used for the form, and the skill of the worker. Concrete is a non-linear, non-
elastic material, and will fail suddenly, with a brittle failure, unless adequate reinforced
with steel. An "under-reinforced" concrete element will fail with a ductile manner, as
the steel will fail before the concrete. An "over-reinforced" element will fail suddenly, as
the concrete will fail first. Reinforced concrete elements should be designed to be
under-reinforced so users of the structure will receive warning of impending collapse.
This is a technical term. Reinforced concrete can be designed without enough
reinforcing. A better term would be properly reinforced where the member can resist all
the design loads adequately and it is not over-reinforced.
The elastic modulus of concrete can vary widely and depends on the concrete mix, age,
and quality, as well as on the type and duration of loading applied to it. It is usually
taken as approximately 25 GPa for long-term loads once it has attained its full strength
(usually considered to be at 28 days after casting). It is taken as approximately 38 GPa
for very short-term loading, such as footfalls.
Concrete has very favorable properties in fire—it is not adversely affected by fire until it
reaches very high temperatures. It also has very high mass, so it is good for providing
sound insulation and heat retention (leading to lower energy requirements for the
heating of concrete buildings). This is offset by the fact that producing and transporting
concrete is very energy intensive (Nilson, 2004).
7.3 ALUMINUM
Aluminum is a soft, lightweight, malleable metal. The yield strength of pure aluminum is
7–11 MPa, while aluminum alloys have yield strengths ranging from 200 MPa to 600
MPa. Aluminum has about one-third the density and stiffness of steel. It is ductile, and
easily machined, cast, and extruded. Corrosion resistance is excellent due to a thin
surface layer of aluminum oxide that forms when the metal is exposed to air, effectively
preventing further oxidation. The strongest aluminum alloys are less corrosion resistant
due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper.
7.4 COMPOSITES
Composite materials are used increasingly in vehicles and aircraft structures, and to
some extent in other structures. They are increasingly used in bridges, especially for
conservation of old structures such as Coalport cast iron bridge built in 1818.
Composites are often anisotropic (they have different material properties in different
directions) as they can be laminar materials. They most often behave non-linearly and
will fail in a brittle manner when overloaded.
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They provide extremely good strength to weight ratios, but are also very expensive. The
manufacturing processes, which are often extrusion, do not currently provide the
economical flexibility that concrete or steel provide. The most commonly used in
structural applications are glass-reinforced plastics.
7.5 MASONRY
Masonry has been used in structures for hundreds of years, and can take the form of
stone, brick or blockwork. Masonry is very strong in compression but cannot carry
tension (because the mortar between bricks or blocks is unable to carry tension).
Because it cannot carry structural tension, it also cannot carry bending, so masonry
walls become unstable at relatively small heights. High masonry structures require
stabilization against lateral loads from buttresses (as with the flying buttresses seen in
many European medieval churches) or from windposts. Historically, masonry was
constructed with no mortar or with lime mortar. In modern times cement based mortars
are used (Jennings, 2004).
Since the widespread use of concrete, stone is rarely used as a primary structural
material, often only appearing as a cladding, because of its cost and the high skills
needed to produce it. Brick and concrete blockwork have taken its place.
Masonry, like concrete, has good sound insulation properties and high thermal mass,
but is generally less energy intensive to produce. It is just as energy intensive as
concrete to transport.
7.6 TIMBER
Timber is the oldest of structural materials, and though mainly supplanted by steel,
masonry and concrete, it is still used in a significant number of buildings. The properties
of timber are non-linear and very variable, depending on the quality, treatment of
wood, and type of wood supplied. The design of wooden structures is based strongly on
empirical evidence.
Bamboo scaffolding can reach great heights. Wood is strong in tension and
compression, but can be weak in bending due to its fibrous structure. Wood is relatively
good in fire as it chars, which provides the wood in the center of the element with some
protection and allows the structure to retain some strength for a reasonable length of
time(New World Encyclopedia, 2017).

7.7 OTHER STRUCTURAL MATERIALS

Adobe
Bamboo Mud bricks
Roofing materials
 19

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