Where you run into the kind of problem you describe is when a strong but brittle material is substituted for a weaker but more ductile material. The ductile material will bend before it breaks, the brittle material will simply break.
As for something "designed and built correctly" showing "excessive deflections before failure", certainly one can design things that way but that doesn't mean that it's the only correct way. Concrete for example doesn't flex noticeably before it breaks so by your reasoning concrete should never be used as a building material.
When dealing with wooden beams, making the beam stronger than called for is not going to result in sudden failure with no warning unless the original design would also fail suddenly with no warning at a lighter load.
I would like you to quote the statute which makes it a criminal offense to build something stronger than is required. Or provide reference to a civil case where someone was successfully sued for building something stronger than was specified.
Engineering for systems under stress, particularly dynamic stresses, is a _complex_ and _complicated_ subject.
*ALL* the components have to be considered, =both= singly, and in combination. 'Over-building' _one_ component can result in excessive transfer of stress to _other_ components, Leading to failure of _that_ component under conditions that are _less_ severe -- as measured for the overall system -- than the original design was spec'ed to handle.
There are numerous real-world instances of this *exact* thing happening. One of the easiest places to find them is in the world of home-built, plans- built, aircraft. Firstly, in general, the 'safety margin' on _any_ aircraft design is extremely small. "1.6" is typical for commercial construction. Homebuilts usually are designed with higher margins, because there is more variability in the quality of construction. However, there are =many= cases on record, including after-the-fact engineering analyses, where a home-builder has modified a design -- to =strengthen= some part of it -- where said mods have led to _premature_failure_ of other areas of the design. Higher "point stresses" occurred in the modified design, as a result of the modification, than the original design was designed to handle.
Take a step back and make sure you're using the right material for the application. I don't know what you're up to, but when someone says "beam" I think "steel". Like I said, I have no idea what you're doing, just make sure you're doing it the right way- saving a couple of bucks does you no good if you're dead.
Please provide a case in which replacing a weak ductile material with a strong equally ductile material results in the kind of failure you describe. Please include the analysis.
Yes, necessarily true. Please provide an example of a case in which a wooden beam was strengthened and there was subsequently a failure with no warning while an identical structure subjected to the identical loading gave warning. Please prove that this was the case, I don't want someone's opinion.
Buildings of the kind where an individual would be installing or removing a beam are not typically under "dynamic stresses" to any significant extent unless you want to count wind loading. If you want to talk skyscrapers it's another story, but they typically have little or no wood in the structure.
How can it "result in excessive transfer of stress" if the loading is the same? Please demonstrate the mechanics of this. Show me an analysis of a case where under identical loading increasing the strength of one member increases the stress in other members.
Again, show me an analysis that demonstrates that this happens.
I was not aware that the OP was talking about an aircraft. Houses, workshops, and other buildings typically have much higher margins than that.
Now why would "higher point stresses" occur under the same loading? That's a matter of forces and geometry. While I probably could design a structure in which stiffening one member increased the static stress somewhere else, I'd have to work at it.
What usually happens in such incidents is that the stiffness of a structural member was changed, resulting in an altered natural frequency, which put it into a range to resonate with shed vortices and there by causing a flutter problem. But putting a heavier beam than required in a house is not going to cause a problem such as this.
Look, the bottom line on this is that you seem determined to overengineer a simple problem like spanning a doorway.
Show us how to make a house fall down by making the headers too strong and maybe someone will listen. In the meantime you're just crying gloom and doom to no purpose.
This is a key distinction. I would guess that issues of dynamic stress drop to insignificance in a structure like a house, though. (But I am not an engineer, nor do I play one on tv, so take that with a grain of salt.)
I was thinking of exactly the same example, but it seems different in that dynamic stress is a very big factor here.
So far, I've done this only as a thought experiment, but I'm tempted: Go to a hobby shop and buy some balsa and build 4 "structures": 2 24" beams consisting of a 1/4" square piece of balsa, and two more such beams where 20" on one end is stiffened by gluing another 1/4" square above and below the primary one. Clamp all 4 structures to your bench so that 2" is held rigidly, and the remaining 22" is without support.
Now, from the ends of one of each type of beam, hang increasing weights until they break. My guess is that the breaking point will be pretty close to the same. (you might have to adjust for the decreased arm over which the force is applied in the case of the bending beam if that gets significant.)
Part two is to take 1/2 that weight, attached by string to the end of the beams, and drop it from various heights. My guess is that here the stiffened beam will break much sooner, as the more flexible beam absorbs the dynamic stress with the springiness over its length.
If reality matches my thought experiment, that would say that increasing the strength of a header in a house is probably a harmless waste of materials, while increasing the strength of a wing may well be disastrous.
Another dynamic example is automobile suspensions: if you are going to significantly strengthen (stiffen) the springs, you should make sure that the structure to which the suspension is attached has the strength to accept the increased dynamic load.
Concrete is a perfect example of the problem and one where overdesign is a problem. Too much steel reinforcement in a small beam compared to less steel in a deeper beam - the lightly reinforced beam will fail slowly with the ductile steel failing in tension. The overbuilt beam with too much steel will fail suddenly and in a brittle manner by failure of the concrete in compression.
The lighter beam would bend considerably before failure. The heavy beam can carry a significant overload and can cause it's supports to fail without warning. You can't look at a building by considering its components individually. You have to look at the entire structure as a system.
If an engineer or architect is responsible for the design of a building, they are required to ensure that it does not fail in a manner that does not give warning (i.e it must fail in a ductile manner). If the design of one component results in an unexpected failure, whether from over- or underdesign, this results in professional liability. Maybe not the Code of Hammurabi, but there are still legal consequences - such as criminal negligence causing death.
If something is stronger, the fact that it's ductile doesn't necessarily make it ok. You can change the load regime without entering the point where ductile failure of the replaced element comes into play.
I've done dynamic analyses of some pretty small structures. They don't have to be skyscrapers to have dynamic loading problems.
The problem is that the loading isn't necessarily the same. Just because the design load is the same, doesn't mean that the load in use is the same. If someone overloads a properly designed building element, they will see precursors of failure. If the element is overdesigned, those precursors (e.g. excess deflection) don't show up. Proper design means that you get a warning if you have overloaded the structure.
The poster said that overdesign is never a problem. No mention of headers.
This is the classic case, but it is NOT a case of overdesign. It is a case of WRONG design. Overdesign would be sizing the beam twice as deep as it needs to be, not providing a faulty design.
But, we are considering overdesign. In this case we must assume that the design with the lighter beam is SUFFICIENT to carry the load. It is not expected to fail. Thus a heavier beam would be sufficient as well.
Wouldn't the supports be overdesigned as well? You seem to be considering loads that cause buildings to fail. In my mind these are things like earthquake, wind and perhaps snow. With an earthquake if the supports are going to fail under the load it doesn't matter if the beam is oversized or not. You are crushed. Likewise with wind. Snow is a different story as it accumulates slowly, and there you might have a point. But even then I contend that while an engineering system tries to be balanced, in practice there is enough variation in materials and fabrication that it is impossible to be 100% certain how it will fail.
Sure, and what if the overdesigner does this and overbuilds everything?
Perhaps you can quote the regulation that states this? Also, give us a case or two where overdesign has resulted in criminal negligence causing death. If they exist you should be able to cite one or two examples.
Over design version "just throw some more rebar in there - it's never bad to overdesign".
For the design load - yes. For the actual load - no. See my other post. The issue is whether you get warning of impending failure. Overdesign can result in brittle failure without warning.
The case from which this derived is one where someone is considering a single element, not designing the whole building. If someone in a forum like this who is not an engineer or architect gets hold of a ridiculous claim like "overdesign is never bad" all sorts of unexpected evil can result.
Uh, we're talking about _wood_ here. Please explain how substituting a strong piece of wood for a weak piece of wood is going to result in "brittle failure without warning".
So in what mode does the replaced element fail? Or are you saying that the other elements which one supposes to be properly designed will not give this warning that you describe, that the ONLY element which will give this warning is the beam that was replaced?
Seems to me then that you need to do something about those other elements.
How small is "pretty small"?
So let's see, it's all right to overload the structure and have it show "precursors of failure" but it's not OK for it to just sit there holding the load?
I see. So you're basically saying that your properly designed structure will give warning if the _beam_ is overloaded but not if the _posts_ are overloaded? Do tell. Sounds like sloppy design to _me_.
Read the title of the thread. We're talking about something in the ballpark of two two-by-tens, not about the effing Space Shuttle.
I have been watching this thread trying to keep out of it but I lost the struggle .....
Michael Daly wrote: snip
I don't recall seeing anything that said that oversizing one component in a system will/could/might cause a failure at the "design" loads. Very obviously the entire system does need to be considered _if_ loading is going beyond the design on any given component.
What I am seeing is a debate that a single (or multiple) over designed component in a system can cause a failure else where in the system but losing sight of "designed" and as has been said several times this is untrue _if_ we are still talking at _designed_ loads.
By the virtue than one constructs a beam capable of carrying double the designed load by no means ensures that the rest of the system, posts, footings, etc, are capable of carrying this. But also this same oversided beam at the _designed_ loads will not cause catastrophic failure in any other components unless they were themselves either under designed or inadequately constructed or had a load increase beyond design.
If one constructs a structure like a beam that is, for e.g. capable of carrying 50% more loading than design but the posts used are still at designed specs loads, then for sure, if you load the beam to its increased capacity the posts and other parts are liable to fail.
This is almost an urban legend type of issue. The real item is that all parts of a structure need to be designed and constructed to meet the needs and loading requirements. Over sized/designed construction of one part will not increase the capacity of the system and is where people become misdirected like some of this discussion. The failure is always due to trying to load at a level to the specs of the over built piece rather than the original design. ... and thus results in these misconceptions that over designed beams, as in the examples in this thread, cause failures in the posts and where in reality the posts were never designed or capable of carrying these loads.
Sorry this doesn't match in my mind. Yes, it is criminal to construct an occupancy build that does not conform to minimal standards stated in various regulations and as result incur a failure causing 3rd party losses in property, life, well-being, etc. There is absolutely nothing I have seen that says I can not exceed any building construction standards and requirements.
You are assuming that the only design criteria is strength. Serviceability and stability are also limits. An element can be more than strong enough is serviceability is the governing criteria. As another poster said, you have to consider the structure as a whole.
But if you do not design a component to conform to standards, but merely oversize the component, you can cause the structure to behave in a manner that causes failure. Think especially in terms of statically indeterminate cases, where load distribution is a function of stiffness.
If you overdesign a component but can show that the overdesign is not a problem, then there is no risk. Columns in high rise buildings are an example - you can design several stories to use the same column even though the upper columns carry a lighter load. However, you have to _design_ it that way.
No, I'm taking you at your word that a "properly designed" structure will "give warning". If the beam doesn't "give warning" then it's not near failure. So the failure has to be somewhere else, and the only other place that can be would be in the vertical members. So one would expect, with this "proper design" of yours, that _they_ would "give warning". If they do then there's no problem, if they don't then by your own standards the structure was not "properly designed".
You don't seem to be able to follow the ramifications of your own argument.
Try that sentence again. It makes no sense as written.
Yes, you do. So what? So you're saying that using a 2x12 header instead of a 2x10 is going to make the house fall down? If not then what are you saying?
You made the assertion, it's up to you to support it. If you don't want to support it them don't make the assertion. Now, do you have case law in which making a part of a structure stronger than required resulted in a conviction for criminal negligence in Canada or are you just a Chicken Little wannabee?
I didn't say it has happened, I said it could happen. If the circumstances arise, all it takes is a zealous crown prosecutor to make the case. Since the law has been applied in other cases, that's not much of a stretch.
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