Use of didactic calculation models in the axilsimetric structure of Newton's cenotaph

Abstract

The work developed in this paper consists in the formalization and verification of the load hypothesis of a non-constructed axilsymmetric vault. This vault is a utopian project by the architect Louis Etienne Boullée, French architect with a very significant volume of work of "surrealist" character. The works topic of this author usually resembles itself in buildings of titanic proportions and devoid of ornament, that base their forms mainly on simple geometric volumes. The project that concerns us will be the Isaac Newton cenotaph, a giant axial symmetric vault with a very small thickness in some points. With the use of the Maple calculation program, a mathematical analysis program combined with CAD / CAM technology based on the existing drawings of this project, we will check the geometric and structural stability of this vault. With this we will show the possibilities of application of the geometric calculation programs to historical and theoretical structural models, as a much more visible and didactic tool than the usual numerical calculations. The visualization of the efforts that result in the different keystones of the vault, together with the understanding and verification of the axial symmetrical functioning of the model, will be decisive when understanding the functioning of this structural system and will resolve the main doubt that concerns us. Could Newton's cenotaph be built? Is it geometrically and materially speaking a stable construction?