2.modern buildings and structural materials.docVIP

Many great buildings (that are) built in the earlier ages are still in existence and in use. Among them are the Pantheon and the Colosseum in Rome, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul; the Gothic churches of France and England, and the Renaissance cathedrals, with their great domes, like the Duomo in Florence and St. Peters in Rome. They are massive structures with thick stone walls that counteract the thrust of their great weight. Thrust is the pressure exerted by each part of a structure on its other parts. 许多伟大的建筑很早就修建了现在仍然还存在并在使用中。在他们之中就包括希腊的帕提侬神庙和罗马的角斗场，伊斯坦布尔的圣索非亚教堂; 法国和英国哥特式教会, 和有着宏伟圆顶的文艺复兴时期大教堂,如佛罗伦萨的中央寺院和罗马的圣彼得大教堂。他们是使用厚重石头墙体来抵消他们巨大自重的巨型结构。轴向压力来自于结构的其它部份对其的传导。 These great buildings were not the product of knowledge of mathematics and physics. They were constructed instead on the basis of experience and observation, often as the result of trial and error. One of the reasons they have survived is because of the great strength that was built into them-strength greater than necessary in most cases. But the engineers of earlier times also had their failure. In Rome, for example, most of the people lived in insulae, great tenement blocks that were often ten stories high. Many of them were poorly constructed and sometimes collapsed with considerable loss or life. 这些伟大的建筑不是数学和物理知识的产物。而是根据经验和观察建造的,经常是不断摸索的产物。他们依然存在的原因之一是由于被修建得能承受很大的力量---在许多情况下大于他们需要的力量。但更早的时期的工程师也有过失败。例如,在罗马, 大多数人民,居住在公寓里, 大的经济公寓经常有十层楼高。许多修建得很拙劣且不时倒塌，造成了相当大的财产或生命损失。 Today, however, the engineer has the advantage not only of empirical information, but also of scientific data that permit him to make careful calculations in advance. When a modem engineer plans a structure, he takes into account the total weight of all its component materials. This is known as the dead load, which is the weight of the structure itself, He must also consider the live load, the weight of all the people, cars, furniture, machines, and so on that the structure will support when it is in use. In structures such as bridges that will