Masonry Magazine March 1970 Page. 7
Computers & Brick Team Up
Engineered Brick Masonry (EBM) construction has been used for years in Europe. Now, communities all over the United States are adopting codes which permit its use here. The old empirical rules of experience have been replaced with rational engineering data which allows an economical and safe usage of EBM construction.
The basic walls serve as both interior and exterior surfaces, thus reducing the cost of structure and interior finish.
There are several other advantages:
* maintenance-free interior walls
* speed of construction
* fire resistance
* high acoustical rating
* esthetics.
Several hundred major structures have been built using EBM in recent years. This acceptance by architects and engineers prompted Acme Brick Company to develop a computerized preliminary structural analysis for structures utilizing Engineered Brick Masonry.
Technical Staff analyzes the information and then enters the appropriate data on specially prepared worksheets. There are three worksheets: (1) Building Form, (2) Wall Form and (3) Wall Variables at Joints.
Putting the facts on these forms is the first step in converting them to the language a computer can understand. The facts are then put on punch cards by a keypunch operator.
Next, the cards are inserted into the IBM 360 computer. Depending on the size of the building, the computer will completely analyze the data, make calculations, and print out the results in less than 30 minutes.
The analysis provides the geometric properties of walls: area, distance to centroid from reference axis and moment of inertia.
The analysis also provides compressive stresses, tensile stresses, virtual eccentricity, eccentricity to wall thickness ratio and floor-to-floor height to wall thickness ratio.
The newest and the oldest join forces.
Computers, symbol of space-age technology, and brick, the oldest known man-made building material, have teamed up.
Result a computerized preliminary structural analysis for high rise buildings of Engineered Brick Masonry.
Computer analysis is a tool that permits the structural engineer to spend more time developing the optimum structural system for each building.
In less than a day, the computer generates a detailed printed analysis giving stresses, other engineering information and the geometric properties of walls. A complete stress analysis is made on all structural walls at every floor and roof juncture.
This operation can save a structural engineer considerable time compared to the same analysis calculated by slide rule or calculator.
One of the nation's largest brick manufacturers, Acme Brick Company, has developed the Computer Program for use with its own IBM 360 Model 20 computer. The program is titled "A Preliminary Structural Analysis for Buildings Utilizing Engineered Brick Masonry."
Here's how the program works. The architect or structural engineer submits preliminary floor plans, building elevations and wall sections. An engineer from Acme's
THE FIRST STEP toward a preliminary structural analysis involves an engineer on the Technical Services staff of Acme Brick. Here Larry Ricker enters detailed information from the floor plans submitted on the "Building Form" worksheet.