London Landmarks Structures: Arches, Towers and the Giant Wheel

What Are Structures?

Structures are engineered systems designed to support or resist loads. They can be as simple as a bridge or as complex as the London Eye. In this simulation, we explore how these structures maintain their integrity under various forces.

The key elements of statics include equilibrium, which requires that all forces and moments acting on a structure sum to zero, ensuring stability.

How Structures Resist Forces

Structures resist external forces such as gravity, wind, and traffic through internal stresses. For example, an arch distributes these forces along its curved path, while a tower relies on its height and shape to remain upright.

In the simulation, you can observe how different structures manage these forces by adjusting parameters like tension in cables or the angle of arches.

Real-World Applications

The principles learned from this simulation are crucial for designing safe and efficient buildings and bridges. For instance, the understanding of arches is fundamental to constructing viaducts and tunnels.

Moreover, the analysis of towers and cables helps in the design of suspension bridges and wind turbines.

Analyzing Structures with Statics

Statics provides a framework for analyzing structures by breaking down complex forces into simpler components. This allows engineers to predict how a structure will behave under different conditions.

Through the simulation, you can perform eight analytic versus numerical checks to understand the accuracy of statics in real-world scenarios.

Frequently asked questions

Try it live

Everything above runs in your browser — open London Landmarks Structures: Arches, Towers and the Giant Wheel and change the parameters while it is running. Nothing is installed, nothing is uploaded, the whole model lives in one tab.