SHEET 01 — THE ELASTIC REGION

Loads

The elastic region — what is carried, and what it costs.

• 1Proof Load3 min readThe overload carried before the first working day, and what it quietly doesn't prove. Why proof testing is a screening tool rather than a demonstration of capacity, and what a passed proof test actually tells an owner.
• 2The Working Load Line3 min readWhere the working load sits on the curve, why it sits so far below ultimate, and what the distance between the two is actually buying.
• 3Dead Load and Live Load3 min readThe distinction that organises every structural calculation: what is always there against what comes and goes, and why the second is harder to bound.
• 4A Dynamic Load Is Not a Bigger Static One7 min readRate matters. Impact, vibration and suddenly applied load do things a slowly applied load of the same magnitude does not, and treating them as equivalent is a classic and expensive error.
• 5Load Paths, and Where Force Actually Goes6 min readForce takes the stiffest route available. Following the load path through a structure, what happens when a path is interrupted, and why the answer is often not where the intuition points.