Polymorf - Knowhere - Square-2 spaceframe

Just as the amount of load a truss bridge can carry relative to its own dead weight, its L/W

ratio, is an important measure of its structural efficiency, so to is the ratio of a spaceframe's

module size to its span. In general as the size of the module increases, the number of

struts and hubs required to span a given area decreases.

For example, as shown by the following demonstration, doubling the module size can

reduce the number of struts and hubs by a factor of four and the total length of the struts

by one-half for a given span.


a) module size = 5 units	b) module size = 10 units
.
struts = 32 hubs = 8	struts = 8 hubs = 2
total strut length = 160 units	total strut length = 80 units
.
Fig. 257 - Comparison of the number of hubs and struts required to
span 100 square units of area with different module sizes

The economic cost of a spaceframe is due primarily to the number of hubs and struts used

in the structure. As a result, doubling the module size can reduce the cost by as much as

one-half. As a rule of thumb, a spaceframe's module size should be 8 - 16 % of its span for

greatest structural and economic efficiency.

Eliminating some of the struts and hubs used in the inner grid of the Square-2 spaceframe

results in two variations called Square-1, and Square-3, which are more open structures.

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