What is the difference between stanchions, posts, trusses, and struts?

Stanchion – Literally means an upright element. Some industries call posts or bollards that have tied loads on them stanchions. Post – Vertical load-bearing element. Larger or thicker versions tend to be called columns. Truss – A beam or similar, roughly horizontal, element composed of a number of sub-elements. Think of a beam with most …

Could the Three Gorges Dam be at risk for collapse from an earthquake since it sits on a fault line?

The Three Gorges Dam is a gravity dam, so it would tend towards more earthquake-resistant than most comparable objects. A gravity dam is a type of structure that doesn’t rely on the strength of the materials to resist the forces of reservoir and earthquakes but rather is built to weigh so much that these forces …

Why are some concrete posts of elevated rail systems not aligned at the center of the girder which will hold the 2 rails of the train?

Trains have very specific requirements for how much they can rise/fall or turn. As such, the available locations to place a support can easily not line up with the track. So they place the support as near as possible and provide a secondary member to support the rails. You often see this with freeway interchanges …

In flexural design for concrete, is steel reinforcement required? Why?

Strictly speaking, no. Without reinforcement, steel or otherwise, you are looking at gravity structures that mostly rely on compressive strength. Any modern application of concrete pretty much calls for reinforcement. In different terms, once your concrete object (this is a solid concrete object) gets a dimension that is around three times more than the shortest, …

Say I’m in a fair-sized city. How far down would I have to dig to no longer be in that city?

Legally, you’re still in the city at any depth this side of the center of earth. If you’re looking for undisturbed soil: Suburban – houses: 5′. Suburban – streets: 20′ in most cases, but at low as 60′ for large deep utilities. Suburban – commercial buildings: 20′ in most cases, but as low as 40′. …