this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
496 points (99.4% liked)

Science Memes

19674 readers
3043 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] paranoia@feddit.dk 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

No, we would not. The beams have a loading that they must adequately support. They have a span that is dictated by the column spacing. There are moment, shear and deflection requirements that must be met.

You cannot just throw in supports (i.e., columns, bracing) everywhere to reduce the span until it works, otherwise you impact the usability of the building space and drive up the cost of construction.

Reducing the beam to beam spacing means you are increasing the number of structural elements and therefore cost, and probably also using the material inefficiently. The expensive part of a beam is the connection, and you typically want to reduce the number of connections and crane lifts as much as possible.