You have an unlimited amount of 1 meter uniform bricks.?

Question

What is the largest overhang that can be produced without using any form of adhesion?

only 1 brick on the surface. hench overhang

only 1 brick on the surface. hence overhang

This question is in the mathematics section. not science or engineering. therefore please give a mathematical solution

so how do you do this without it falling over?????

oh and only 1 brick per row....

Answer 1

I require a bit more info. I think that you could make an infinitely large structure without adhesion...it's strength and longevitiy is another thing.

Answer 2

Right. If you build the bricks in an upside-down pyramid, then that will give your overhang. You then put a right way up pyramid on top of it to stop the edge bricks from falling off.The question now is whether you mean total overhang, or the overhang directly above the top of the wall. If you mean total overhang: it's unlimited. If you mean directly above the wall, then the brick can be moved until it only has a tiny part left on the wall, giving an overhang of 0.9999999999999999999999999m.

Oh yeah, and I assume by 1 metre brick you mean one metre cubed. Make sure you say that next time.

And also, seeing as this is on UK answers: it's spelt METRE. METER is American and incredibly wrong.

Answer 3

momma is right - you could theoretically produce an infinite overhang - in practice it would be limited by your construction techniques and the load bearing capacity of the bricks at the bottom.

Having seen your amendments, the maximum stable overhang is produced by building a "diamond" shape. In the simplest case you put one brick on row 1, two on row 2, and 1 on row 3 - this gives you a 50cm overhang. But if you make it 5 rows high you can have 3 bricks on row 3, giving an overhang of 1m. 7 rows high, 1.5m, and so on. The limiting factors are, as I said, whether you have the construction techniques available to support the overhang whilst you are building it (since it is not stable until all the bricks are in place) and the load bearing capacity of the bottom brick (since eventually it will be incapable of supporting the weight of all the bricks on top of it).

Ever think of giving us all the facts at the beginning?

In that case, a tad short of 50cm. No matter how gradually you make it, after 50 cm the centre of gravity of the pile will shift beyond the edge of the first brick and the pile will topple. Exactly 50 cm is a metastable point.

Answer 4

Assuming the edges of the bricks were stable,it would be possible to have an overhang of something like 99cm.First place one brick on the floor,then overhang each of two bricks,one at either end with a projection of 99cm.To do so hold them in place with a counterweight of sufficient numbers of further bricks stacked up across the gap between the two.The counterweight pile would only need to secure the projecting bricks by being seated couple of centimetres on each.

Answer 5

If I'm understanding your question properly (you use bricks only to extend the overhang, not to weight it down), then the answer is 50cm, no matter how many bricks you use. An arch would not be an overhang.

Answer 6

You can have exactly 1 metre overhang

Answer 7

questions a bit confusing but;

if you lay them flat on the first layer the maximum over hang is aproaching 1 metre, since at 1 metre it would fall (assumes that the bricks on top would stop it from falling.

if you build a diagonal shape it could overlap to infinity.

if you only have one layer it has to be balance at 50 centimeters.

Answer 8

If you stack them right you'd get three or four metre overhang

Answer 9

it is also unlimited.