Roman Thrust Roof

The basic barrel form which appeared first in ancient egypt and the middle east is in effect a continuous series of arches deep enough to cover a three dimensional space it exerts the same kind of thrust as the circular arch and must be buttressed along its entire length by heavy walls with limited openings.

Roman thrust roof.

In architecture a vault french voûte from italian volta is a self supporting arched form usually of stone or brick serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. The barrel vault is a continuous arch the length being greater than its diameter. The weight distribution inherent to the arch means that the thrust is always outwards. Truss in engineering a structural member usually fabricated from straight pieces of metal or timber to form a series of triangles lying in a single plane.

A triangle cannot be distorted by stress a truss gives a stable form capable of supporting considerable external load over a large span. The roman s had not conceived of a decorative. The simplest kind of vault is the barrel vault also called a wagon or tunnel vault which is generally semicircular in shape. Roman architects discovered that two barrel vaults that intersected at right angles.

Effectively a series of. The barrel vault is the simplest form of a vault. A barrel vault also known as a tunnel vault or a wagon vault is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve or pair of curves in the case of a pointed barrel vault along a given distance the curves are typically circular in shape lending a semi cylindrical appearance to the total design.