- May 24, 2018
- Posted by: Editorial team
- Category: Design Engineering
Remember that force that attracts a body towards the centre of the earth, also know as the gravitational pull or ‘g’ for short.
It is common mistake in designing a structure to forget to multiply loads by ‘g’ and consider the effects of gravity.
Gravity is a constant (in this cas 9.81 m/s) so missing out ‘g’ can roughly equate to loads being out by factor of 10 – a significant error in any situation.
Not realising this error through can see structures be built woefully under strength and hence liable to collapse.
Such was the case a few years ago for a client who designed an underwater marine structure.
Without realising that water pressure was multiplied by g resulted in a marine structure that was 10% of strength required. As a result the structure subsequently collapsed when submerged instantly and it sank to the bottom.
So when designing structures, the key is not forget to add ‘g’ and keep your structures suitably designed for effects of gravity.
