Unlike the previous poster, I will accept you are correct when you say 'some ways'. I think what the other member may be pointing out is that while that level of heat and consequential wetting for that length of time may not damage the 'blocks' it will surely play havoc with the 'glue'. In this case, I can't see the partly heated stones being cooled so quickly by the sprayed water extinguishing the flames as to create an unstable, or brittle 'block'. I don't see it getting hot enough from a wood fire to do so.
The mortar OTOH is a different story.
This is pure conjecture on my part. Feel free to correct me.
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Apparently, limestone and lime mortar are both vulnerable to fire in the sense that they don’t burn, they turn into powder.
Masonry in a cathedral is made from blocks of stone so massive they don't need mortar, with the exception of the outer layer of blocks sealed along the seams to stop frost damage from water penetration. A cathedral's structure allows downward gravitational pressure combined with flying buttresses to spread the load consistently and evenly throughout the building. Any mortar would be crushed to powder. It might be 850 years old, but the engineering even then was very sophisticated, especially the understanding of construction materials and their properties.
Or that is what I remember from being taught at school - although as usual, I will happily be corrected.......up to a point.
ToS
Some good news - Notre Dame's roughly 180,000 rooftop bees survived the fire!
"Because the beehives were kept in a section 100 feet below the main roof where the fire was blazing, they didn't meet the same fate as the church's other wooden structures. The hives were likely polluted with smoke, but this wouldn't have hurt the insects: Bees don't have lungs, so smoke calms them rather than suffocates them."
"Because the beehives were kept in a section 100 feet below the main roof where the fire was blazing, they didn't meet the same fate as the church's other wooden structures. The hives were likely polluted with smoke, but this wouldn't have hurt the insects: Bees don't have lungs, so smoke calms them rather than suffocates them."
First I may have misinterpreted ToS when he said "fire" and "water", he may have meant "fire and water" i.e. wet stones being heated. That can produce steam in the stone and crack it. Just heat alone usually just "spalls" the stone, ie pieces of it flake off. And stone that isn't directly heated shouldn't be damaged
Be that as it may, it does appear from all reports and photos the it was the roof that burned and roofs tend to be on the top of buildings as in this case. And the heat tends to rise. Leaving things like the windows undamaged per reports. Those window are pretty high up! (from my on site observation in the past) yet weren't damaged (thankfully). The point about stone is that it doesn't ADD to the fire, it isn't flammable, which I'm sure ToS would agree!
From being there also, I can say that there isn't a whole lot of flammable stuff such as structural wood, wood paneling, cloth, etc compared to most buildings of that size. Stone is the theme! The pews were pretty low in the building.
Yes I do understand that stone arches work in compression, basically stone is only strong in compression. And yes that kind of construction is a wondrous balance of static loads and yes if one part goes another part may well follow.
That that hasn't happened in an obvious way is a good sign.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that morter wasn't used for any major purposes. It's just stone on stone, cut in various amazing ways to work together.
Be that as it may, it does appear from all reports and photos the it was the roof that burned and roofs tend to be on the top of buildings as in this case. And the heat tends to rise. Leaving things like the windows undamaged per reports. Those window are pretty high up! (from my on site observation in the past) yet weren't damaged (thankfully). The point about stone is that it doesn't ADD to the fire, it isn't flammable, which I'm sure ToS would agree!
From being there also, I can say that there isn't a whole lot of flammable stuff such as structural wood, wood paneling, cloth, etc compared to most buildings of that size. Stone is the theme! The pews were pretty low in the building.
Yes I do understand that stone arches work in compression, basically stone is only strong in compression. And yes that kind of construction is a wondrous balance of static loads and yes if one part goes another part may well follow.
That that hasn't happened in an obvious way is a good sign.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that morter wasn't used for any major purposes. It's just stone on stone, cut in various amazing ways to work together.
The Romans did have a concrete which formula supposedly was lost until modern times. So while they used arches they tended to use a lot of brick in their buildings. And they made arches of the brick.
That article about the Pantheon is quite good. I had read while ago, in another source, that they did use wedge shaped stones in the concrete as "reinforcement" in the dome.
So at least for a lot of buildings it isn't the sort of construction that the cathedrals used.
The Greeks used stone structurally in their public buildings at least, but not very long spans at all. One reason they ended up using a lot of columns!
That article about the Pantheon is quite good. I had read while ago, in another source, that they did use wedge shaped stones in the concrete as "reinforcement" in the dome.
So at least for a lot of buildings it isn't the sort of construction that the cathedrals used.
The Greeks used stone structurally in their public buildings at least, but not very long spans at all. One reason they ended up using a lot of columns!
And prying eyes and insects and...
The buttresses on the walls would be used to prevent the outward pressures of the roof.
I believe you mean it would be displaced at the time of installation. It was still used as a filler and cradle among the other advantages mentioned. Not all rock walls were built with the precision of the pyramids. Motar was not used in the same manor as for a modern brick wall assembly.
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The often mentioned flying buttress is the same concept derived from the structural concept of Pantheon. If you look at the section drawing of Pantheon in that link, you will see the similarity of the section of Gothic cathedral.
That is very good news!
I somehow doubt it will happen, but still hope that more people will respect the creatures of nature, and the marvel that all life is.
Seeing the ridiculous amount of money being offered from willing hands for the rebuilding effort, starting almost immediately after the fire had even started, I have no concern whatsoever regarding the Notre Dame.
A shame that the rich countries and individuals of the world repeatedly ignore almost all other desperate cries for help.
Relative comparison:
There is no problem cobbling together some stones and wood to make a building even if the materials may be expensive, much harder to build bees from scratch.
Yes, as an iconic collection of sticks and stones, Notre Dame must be rebuilt and saved, but there are other far more pressing concerns happening now in a world increasingly governed by a skewed set of priorities most definitely not of my making.
A billion Euros just isn't right. ToS
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Halas all the countries here spend far more for oil production, Norway, France, Scotland, etc... If human beings were liable the first priority should be to make less.
If richest can give donations it is because most of people are consumers and halas since human beings settlement with farming, production, cunsumption then reproduction is the paradigm. Nobody today has answer on how to change the paradigm and nothing changed since A. Carnegie. Donation as cunsumption is about individual behavior. I'm not sure it makes sense to oppose priorities because if so we could sweep into populism and reproach to most of people to make babies than increase cunsumption in a limited ressources world.
In a world where the most important monney ressource is now algorythms I'm not against we are not working as them and being able to preserve a symbol which is useless (halas my fear is the concern of N-D cathedral is also about turism & monney...).
Let see the positive side: art like music btw is a positive side of what we all are.
If richest can give donations it is because most of people are consumers and halas since human beings settlement with farming, production, cunsumption then reproduction is the paradigm. Nobody today has answer on how to change the paradigm and nothing changed since A. Carnegie. Donation as cunsumption is about individual behavior. I'm not sure it makes sense to oppose priorities because if so we could sweep into populism and reproach to most of people to make babies than increase cunsumption in a limited ressources world.
In a world where the most important monney ressource is now algorythms I'm not against we are not working as them and being able to preserve a symbol which is useless (halas my fear is the concern of N-D cathedral is also about turism & monney...).
Let see the positive side: art like music btw is a positive side of what we all are.
Aside from and irrespective of all the tedious political issues, Notre Dame is a living encyclopaedia of human creativity, and subsequently worth the cost of restoration.
That's the way I think too and as is I believe it should be restored to the identical (but with modern tech). It's not a symbol of technology, people mix up the concept of tool and knowledge vs the destination of the build. Representation has no utility and todays the main atribute of Notre Dame is more about a vintage aesthetic witness of its time. Resorations always tried to respect that.
Btw this witness is important as there are evolutions in each cathedrals and that's what I tried to explain as well with the link in a post above if you read it to the last page.
Do you put glass roof in a roman (not from Rome but the period before the Gothic) church ? No! To see evolutions as a testimony and heritage is really important : International Gothic begun somewhat in italy with massive but very decorated exteriors than lighted begunn around Paris to improve more and more till XVI century in Germany with Flamboyant Gothic cathedral style ! Transform all these testimonies witrh modern mixed style and you destroy an hystoric heritage ! As I already said it makes no sense to restore Mona Lisa with Jackson Pollocks or Basquiat touchs : each has a great interrest in their standalone style and time area. As someone said Fusion food is rarely a sucess and my thinking it is only when thinked friom scratch to create something else.
YMMV of course....
Btw this witness is important as there are evolutions in each cathedrals and that's what I tried to explain as well with the link in a post above if you read it to the last page.
Do you put glass roof in a roman (not from Rome but the period before the Gothic) church ? No! To see evolutions as a testimony and heritage is really important : International Gothic begun somewhat in italy with massive but very decorated exteriors than lighted begunn around Paris to improve more and more till XVI century in Germany with Flamboyant Gothic cathedral style ! Transform all these testimonies witrh modern mixed style and you destroy an hystoric heritage ! As I already said it makes no sense to restore Mona Lisa with Jackson Pollocks or Basquiat touchs : each has a great interrest in their standalone style and time area. As someone said Fusion food is rarely a sucess and my thinking it is only when thinked friom scratch to create something else.
YMMV of course....
I don't understand your question. I'm sure you know that honey bees, in common with other insects, draw oxygen in through holes in their bodies known as spiracles and pump the oxygen through a system of increasingly tiny tubes (tracheae) that deliver oxygen directly to tissues and muscles.Just bees or the insects?
