Talk:Topopolis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article covers subjects of relevance to Architecture. To participate, visit the WikiProject Architecture for more information. The current monthly improvement drive is Johannes Itten.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale.
??? This article has not yet received an importance rating on the assessment scale.

[edit] Rotational Difficulties

How would a tube in a circle or torus knot rotate around its axis (the inner axis of the tube, required to keep artificial gravity) unless it were flexible or segmented? Such a structure would have vast stresses on it...I'm no engineer, but I think that would rule out flexibility. So is it segmented then? -Fëaluinix 10:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the stresses are rather small. The radius of Earth's orbit is 1.5e8 m; if a topopolis is 3 km in diameter then the proportional change in the length of the tube as it rotates is 2e-5. As it turns out, changes in temperature cause a proportional change in the length of steel of 2e-5 per degree C, so the stress due to rotation is roughly the same as that due to a temperature change of 1 degree. 70.130.202.121 11:35, 4 May 2007 (UTC)