Exercise 3. Read and translate text A. Text A. The post and lintel (part i)

Text A. THE POST AND LINTEL (part I)

The beginning of structure is the wall, whether the wall is made of stone, brick, glass blocks, or any of a variety of materials. But a room enclosed with walls has no light or view, so the wall must be opened up. The blocks or bricks over that opening must be supported against the pull of gravity, and this is done either by means of a beam (of wood, or of metal after 1750) or an arch. Such a beam inserted in a wall to support the wall above is called a lintel. The wall could also be cut away, so to speak, and replaced with slender stacks of blocks to form columns, with lin­tels spanning the spaces between them. The post and lintel system is as old as human construction in permanent materi­als. Archaeological and anthropological evi­dence suggests that post and lintel systems of wood or bound papyrus were used long before they were translated into more durable stone, and in fact humans have been using posts and beams for several hun­dred thousand years. Such a system is called “a trabeated system”, from the Latin “trabes” or beam. One of the most straightforward examples of post and lintel construction is the Valley Temple east of the pyramid of Khafre, Giza, Egypt, built between 2570 B.C. and 2500 B.C. Here, finely pol­ished square lintels of red granite rest on square piers of the same material, contrast in that with the alabaster floor. Extending the beam over the end of the column, results in a cantilever.

All beams, whether of stone, wood, or any other material, are acted upon by gravity. Since all materials are flexible to varying degrees - beams tend to sag of their own weight even more as loads are applied. This means that the upper part of a beam between two supports is squeezed together and is compressed along the top surface, while the lower part is stretched and is said to be in tension. In a cantilever, the sit­uation is exactly reversed, for as the extended beam sags due to the pull of grav­ity, the upper part is stretched (put in ten­sion) and the lower portion experiences compressive stresses.

Exercise 4. Translate the words:

block, beam, support, post, lintel, stacks of blocks, column, part(v., n.), span (v., n.), suggest, wood, bound papyrus, trabeated system, pier, cantilever, apply, sag, squeeze, compress, stretch, load.

Exercise 5. Choose the right translation from A to B:

A: crack, deform, rest on, support, cantilever, pier, stone, steel, gravity, polish, mud.

B: поддерживать, камень, полировать, грязь, опора, консоль, растрескиваться, деформироваться, сталь, опираться на, притяжение.

Exercise 6. Are these meanings correct or incorrect? Correct the mistakes:

lintel – стойка

suggest – поддерживать

column – колонна

wood – железо

steel – стекло

compress – сжимать

stretch – растягивать

squeeze – сжимать

Exercise 7. Translate the following word combinations:

stacks of blocks, trabeated system, compressive strength, tensile strength, tensile stress, solid concrete, crystalline material, post and lintel system, result in.