Yes, I know it might not be practical to do this without errors and there’s reasons like running utilities through and quality control with inexperienced workers, but technically speaking, could you make stronger structures with less materials using stronger structural shapes? Maybe it’s just more pleasing to our eyes everything being straight and square and such, but what about utility canopies and tents where you want to have your structural members as light and portable as possible? Why do we not have tetrahedron shaped tents that have 3 small, collapsible, yet rigid poles and a firing they go in at the top instead of having long flexible ones?
In: Engineering
Triangles aren’t magical. They have one very specific use – they get rid of bending force. You try to bend a triangle, you just end up stretching one aide and squishing another. This only works if the force is in the right direction – if it pushes sideways (up or down on the sheet of paper where you drew your triangle) then there’s still just as much bending and the triangle is no good.
If you wanted to use triangles to improve floor joists then you’d have to make them into trusses, and while trusses do see some use it would take up more space or money than using regular old I or H beams.
So we see trusses in many roofs, where space is free, but in the floor not so much.
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