Hurricane-proof building

Tornadoes, cyclones, and other strong winds damage or destroy many buildings. However, with proper design and construction, the damage to buildings by these forces can be greatly reduced. A variety of methods can help a building survive strong winds and storm surge.

Storm surge considerations

Waves along coastal areas can literally destroy a building. Buildings should preferably be built on high ground in order to avoid waves. If waves can reach the building site, the building ought to be elevated on steel, concrete, or wooden pilings or anchored to solid rock.

Wind loading considerations

The foundation

A Monolithic dome in Pensacola Beach, Florida after Hurricane Dennis in 2005

Wind acting on the roof surfaces of a building can cause negative pressures that create a lifting force sufficient to lift the roof off the building. Once this occurs, the building is weakened considerably and the rest of the building will likely fail as well. To minimize this, the upper structure ought to be anchored through the walls to the foundation.

Several methods can be used to anchor the roof. Typically, roof trusses are "toenailed" into the top of the walls, which provide insufficient force to resist high winds. Hurricane ties nail into the wall and wrap over the trusses provide higher force resistance.

Mobile home tie down to the foundation

Interlocking metal pan roof systems installed on mobile homes can fail under the pressure differential (lift) created by the high velocity winds passing over the surface plane of the roof. This is compounded by the wind entering the building allowing the building interior to pressurize lifting the underside of the roof panels, resulting in destruction of the building.To mitigate this pressure differential, pre-installed aluminum tabular channels can permanently be fastened perpendicularly across the top of the interlocking ribs of the metal roof system without disturbing the flow of rainwater at the eaves, mid-span, and ridge locations of the building.

Earth sheltering

Earth sheltered construction is generally more resistant to strong winds and tornadoes than standard construction. Cellars and other earth sheltered components of other buildings, can provide safe refuge during tornadoes.

Dome homes

The physical geometry of a building affects its aerodynamic properties and how well it can withstand a storm. Geodesic dome roofs or buildings have low drag coefficients and can withstand higher wind forces than a square building of the same area . Even stronger buildings result from monolithic dome construction.

Додаток 1 приклад реферативного перекладу solar energy

Shortage of energy is a major world problem and experts! predict that the present rate of increase in energy can exhaust the; supply of fossil fuels in the twenty-first century; What the world needs is a source of perpetual energy.

Potentially, we have a source of perpetual energy shining down on us. The sun. [On clear day in the tropics, the intensity of solar energy can be more than a kilowatt per square metre at mid-day. That amount of energy falling on an area of sixty-four square kilometres is about as much as the whole of the British electricity generating system produces.

There is no charge for the energy that flows so freely from the sun.] Unfortunately its collection and storage can be both difficult and expensive. [Some form of storage is necessary because the sun's rays do not reach us on cloudy days or at night]. Nevertheless, solar energy is now an economic and practicable solution.

It is possible to convert solar energy directly to electricity by the use of photoelectric cells but for most practicable pur-poses this is too expensive. Today's solar energy systems are of two types, based on the flat plate collector and the focussing collector. [The flat plate collector, is simpler and cheaper. In its simplest form, the sun's rays fall onto a panel carrying water pipes. The sun heats the water which is then available for use.]

Focussing systems can trap a much higher proportion, of the sun's energy and also produce much higher temperatures. [People have known this principle for a long time. As .far back as 212 B.. C. Archimedes, using focussing mirrors, set fire on the Roman fleet.]