ANÁLISIS DE ESTRUCTURAS DE MADERA DEL SIGLO XVI DESDE UNA PERSPECTIVA ACTUAL

Abstract

During the European Renaissance there were written a lot of books relating to engineering matters and, because of this it is possible to have firsthand information about the technology capacity available on that period, as well as the description of many technical solutions adopted back then. In Spain, one of the most important technical treatise is Los veintiún libros de los ingenios y de las máquinas, nowadays attributed to Pedro Juan de Lastanosa (Monzón, 1527; Madrid, 1576).

This treatise, in spite of its principal objective of describing and studying the machines, deals with contruction and infrastructure matters. Among its contents, there are some wood roof trusses for buildings for technical and productivity activities, some with unusual geometries.

This paper deals with the structural analysis of the main roof trusses considered in the treatise Los veintiún libros… which is going to allow, on the one hand, to appreciate the efficiency of the solutions showed on the book and, on the other hand, the present application possibilities of it with regard to the construction of structures with wood elements. To do this, simulations are carried out with SAP2000 software.