¶ Wind Stress & Houses (1)
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Wind Stress & Houses:
"Then we discover additional mutual advantage to our house inherent in combination of the geometry of circle and the curving of sheet, not by virtue of the respective unique properties but by their interactive virtues when associated for purposes of housing. This new advantage is discovered as we consider the second major stress applied to house by nature. Second to gravity is wind stress.
"The average wind speed over the United States is computed by widely reported recordings is approximately 12 miles an hour. Houses may be considered aerodynamically as little ships whose standard cruising speed is 12 miles an hour, but which suddenly are accelerated to 30 miles an hour, then suddenly again have to go 50 miles an hour, and sometimes suddenly they have to go to 70 miles an hour and then the flat planking begins to fly off as flat boards develop lift in parallel with the wind, which lift is opposed only by the friction of the nails amounting to but a few pounds in tension as nail pulling experience confirms.
“Designed to look secure by guess and by prayer to the gods of inertia, conventional houses are not engineered from measured”
