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by DrBazza 1065 days ago
The 'space wasted' on an estate of many hundreds, if not, thousands of acres is minimal. Given that often the bricks used were made and fired on site, it definitely saved on resources and labour.

There's a stately home close to me that has a very short run of one of these walls, and the remains of the old brick kiln up on the hill side. If you know what you're looking for, you can also still see the hollows in the ground where the clay was dug, now fill of trees and bushes.
2 comments
Retric 1065 days ago
It cost even less labor to use minimal bracing for strait walls, these are curved for athletics.

I suspect they are imitations of curved fruit walls popular in the 1600’s before greenhouses took off.

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londons_explore 1065 days ago
I don't think this is the case.

A wavy wall with a wave amplitude of X has the same toppling resistance as a straight wall with buttresses on both sides of length x/2.

Assuming this stackoverflow answer is correct[1], the sine wave has (slightly) less bricks.

[1]: https://math.stackexchange.com/a/1500468

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Retric 1065 days ago
A single repetition of the wave is misleading. For N repetitions of the wave you need N + 1 buttresses not 2 N.

Also, while brick is stronger in compression a buttress increases toppling resistance in both directions so you need to consider material properties not just the geometry.

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Dylan16807 1064 days ago
> A wavy wall with a wave amplitude of X has the same toppling resistance as a straight wall with buttresses on both sides of length x/2.

Where did you get that number from, and how does it change as you vary the distance between buttresses?

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londons_explore 1064 days ago
Assuming one pair of butresses (ie to prevent the wall toppling in each direction) per sine wave cycle.
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Dylan16807 1064 days ago
But the math depends so strongly on how often the buttresses are needed, and the length of the buttresses, so you can't assume those things. The goal is a wall of equivalent strength, after all. If equivalent strength needs slightly less distance, or slightly smaller buttresses, the result could be thrown completely off in either direction.
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chrisweekly 1065 days ago
"athletics" -> "aesthetics", right?
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hinkley 1065 days ago
> these are curved for athletics.

Autocorrect strikes again.

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ChoGGi 1064 days ago
> hundreds, if not, thousands of acres

Sections (640 acres)

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