Today I am at the testing ...
Dimitar Dimitrov
30/05/2019 14:30:04
Today I am at the testing ground. For almost ten years my colleagues and I have been developing new methods to build semispherical constructions. You have not heard about it simply because I will announce these new methods only when I cannot think of any ways to improve them, and I constantly come up with improvement ideas...
The current test is a dome with a diameter of 20 meters (66 feet), built out of rebar (with a diameter of 25 millimeters for the vertical elements and 18 millimeters for the horizontal ones). For this size, the 8 metric tons of standard rebar look like a reckless cost-cutting measure, but in fact the construction will easily handle all of nature's elements, simply because the design has been borrowed from it. Only humans construct their homes using flat building blocks. In nature, everything is curved in three dimensions – eggs, nests, bones, etc.
There could be some exceptions, but evolution does not like inefficient creatures, as well as those that cannot deal with competition.
We sat down for a rest and one of my colleagues asked whether our construction could withstand a meter of snow. The covered area of this dome is 314 square meters (3379 square feet), and a meter of wet snow would mean over a 100 metric tons of pressure. I reminded him with a smile that one of the old test constructions – 100 square meters, built out of 2 metric tons of rebar, standing tall at the top of a nearby hill for nearly ten years – has already withstood many storms, and two heavy snowfalls with up to a meter of snow. When snow falls on a hemisphere, it has the same shape as that of an igloo. If somehow we remove the hemisphere under it, the igloo would still stand because it is a self-supporting structure, meaning that, once shaped, it puts minimal pressure on the construction. However, this would not have been the case if the construction had a flat roof.
My colleague understood the explanation and asked what would happen if pressure was applied only to a single point. I was about to explain, but then I realized that my explanation might seem very doubtful and vague. Instead, I looked around and saw one of the vehicles used by my colleagues to move around the construction site. I asked the rest of my colleagues to help me put two planks against the construction, so that I can get over the base of the hemisphere, which is almost vertical. Then I asked them to watch how the construction would hold up when the vehicle starts moving on it... They thought I was joking, so no one took out their phone to shoot the experiment. However, I parked the machine right on top of the construction, so that I could take a few photos.
I am ready to bet you have not seen an UTV taken for a drive on the roof of a greenhouse. We will be growing bananas in this experimental structure.
My next house will be an intersection of spheres and will be exceptionally strong and cheap. And what about you, what is your vision for the shape of your future home?
The current test is a dome with a diameter of 20 meters (66 feet), built out of rebar (with a diameter of 25 millimeters for the vertical elements and 18 millimeters for the horizontal ones). For this size, the 8 metric tons of standard rebar look like a reckless cost-cutting measure, but in fact the construction will easily handle all of nature's elements, simply because the design has been borrowed from it. Only humans construct their homes using flat building blocks. In nature, everything is curved in three dimensions – eggs, nests, bones, etc.
There could be some exceptions, but evolution does not like inefficient creatures, as well as those that cannot deal with competition.
We sat down for a rest and one of my colleagues asked whether our construction could withstand a meter of snow. The covered area of this dome is 314 square meters (3379 square feet), and a meter of wet snow would mean over a 100 metric tons of pressure. I reminded him with a smile that one of the old test constructions – 100 square meters, built out of 2 metric tons of rebar, standing tall at the top of a nearby hill for nearly ten years – has already withstood many storms, and two heavy snowfalls with up to a meter of snow. When snow falls on a hemisphere, it has the same shape as that of an igloo. If somehow we remove the hemisphere under it, the igloo would still stand because it is a self-supporting structure, meaning that, once shaped, it puts minimal pressure on the construction. However, this would not have been the case if the construction had a flat roof.
My colleague understood the explanation and asked what would happen if pressure was applied only to a single point. I was about to explain, but then I realized that my explanation might seem very doubtful and vague. Instead, I looked around and saw one of the vehicles used by my colleagues to move around the construction site. I asked the rest of my colleagues to help me put two planks against the construction, so that I can get over the base of the hemisphere, which is almost vertical. Then I asked them to watch how the construction would hold up when the vehicle starts moving on it... They thought I was joking, so no one took out their phone to shoot the experiment. However, I parked the machine right on top of the construction, so that I could take a few photos.
I am ready to bet you have not seen an UTV taken for a drive on the roof of a greenhouse. We will be growing bananas in this experimental structure.
My next house will be an intersection of spheres and will be exceptionally strong and cheap. And what about you, what is your vision for the shape of your future home?