How and why do buildings expand and constrict?

Question

Not sure what category this falls under but I’m curious. My bad if my flair is way off.

In: 1

Answer 1

Physics is fine. Buildings expand due to their materials heating and cooling. This is factored in during construction and often requires expansion spacing, if you ever see brick work of a certain length you’ll see a space periodically. In steel work you’ll see members on roller joints to compensate for expansion also. There’s plenty more examples in construction. The basics of the physics is as the molecules heat up, the get excited, move more, thus occupy a larger space. When cooled, they move less, occupy a smaller space