how do architects calculate if a structure like a bridge is stable?
In: 2332
Architects don’t calculate that, engineers do. With modern engineering they can model everything in a computer simulation to get a pretty high confidence of stability. Even then things aren’t engineered to be just strong enough, they have safety factors of 3 or 4 times the required strength so even if the calculations are off there is still a lot of leeway. You have to cut a lot of corners in construction, missed some fundamental force in your simulations or use the structure for something it completely wasn’t designed for for it to fail.
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