Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Tom Farmer
This is a real-world problem. Its what I understand from a friendly
exchange of several e-mails during a recent semester in which I was teaching
a multivariable calculus class. The first message sent to me began with, I
am a carpenter with a problem, and it turned out that the problem involved
parameterizing lines and curves in space and finding intersections between
lines and planes exactly some of the topics in multivariable calculus. My
students got a kick out of the developing story.
By way of several messages back and forth, I learned about the plans
for a 10-story hospital (now completed) that has an unconventional stairway
system including, between each pair of floors, a free-standing, curved flight
of stairs that follows an arc of a helix. The stairway system is an important
visual element in this building. From the bottom floor, a visitor can look up
and see the entire system including the 9 helical flights. Thus, these curved
sections must look elegant as well as function properly.
The entire system is enclosed within a quarter cylinder of radius 21 feet,
and the stairway from one floor to the next has the following parts (see
Figures 1 and 2):
- a main landing adjoining the axis of the cylinder; then (rising clockwise
around Figure 1),
- a conventional flight of steps out from the axis to a landing bounded
by the wall of the cylinder; then
- the curved flight of steps that rise along a helical arc to another landing
along the cylindrical wall; and, finally,
- another straight flight of steps back toward the axis and rising to the
main landing on the next floor.
visible from the stairwell, allowing them to have varying thickness turns
out to be unacceptable. This is so even though the necessary variation in
thickness is quite small (as we shall see).
A mathematical reply
The main goal is to discover the correct profile for a beam AB so that horizontal rays from the axis of the cylinder and passing through points on the
top surface of the beam meet the cylindrical wall in a helix. We choose coordinates so that the (vertical) z-axis is the axis of the cylinder with radius
R = 252 inches (21 feet) and let z = 0 represent ground level. Although the
actual stair system rises in the clockwise direction, we follow mathematical
convention in considering a helix that rises counter-clockwise. Also, let the xaxis and y-axis be such that the first octant of space contains the entire stairway system as suggested by Figure 1. Then the coordinates of the points on
the desired helix for the first helical flight of stairs are x = R cos t, y = R sin t,
and z = ct, where t [, ]. Here c is a constant determined by the slope
of the helix and [, ] is the interval of polar rays that contains the helical
flight. The values of c, , and are derived from the building plans.
Any point P = (R cos t, R sin t, ct) of the helix uniquely determines a horizontal line segment QP , where Q = (0, 0, ct) is on the axis of the cylinder.
Where does this line meet the vertical plane containing A and B? We can
take the direction vector of the line QP to be hcos t, sin t, 0i, so using s as
the parameter, we find the line is given by
x = s cos t
y = s sin t
z = ct.
(1)
Since A = (R cos , R sin , c) and B = (R cos , R sin , c), the vertical plane AB containing these points has equation
(sin sin )(x R cos ) + (cos cos )(y R sin ) = 0.
(2)
To see this, we just verify that A and B satisfy the equation and note that
the equation does not depend on the z-coordinate of a point.
Substituting (??) into (??), we find that the desired point of intersection
U is
i
h
R sin( )
cos t
x
=
sin( t) + sin(t )
h
i
R sin( )
y=
sin t
sin( t) + sin(t )
z = ct.
Because the line QP radiates from the axis of the cylinder, we call U the
radial projection of the point P of the helix onto the plane AB .
Next we need to compare U with the point V where the line AB hits the
plane P containing P and the z-axis. The equation of this plane is simply
( sin t)x + (cos t)y = 0.
And, in parametric form the line AB is
z = c + v(c c),
h
h
i
i
sin(t )
x
=
R
cos
+
(cos
cos
)
sin( t) + sin(t )
h
h
i
i
sin(t )
y = R sin +
(sin sin )
sin( t) + sin(t )
h
h
i
i
sin(t )
( ) .
z =c +
sin( t) + sin(t )
While it may not seem likely from the formulas, the x- and y-coordinates
of U must agree with those of V . After all, both points are on the line of
intersection of the vertical planes AB and P . To verify that they actually
do agree just requires the use of the sine difference formula or a computer
algebra system.
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=c
i
i
sin(t )
( ) t
sin( t) + sin(t )
h ( t) sin( t) + ( t) sin(t ) i
sin( t) + sin(t )
So the maximum and minimum values of f , namely 0.4684 inches, correspond to values of f cos 0.425 inches. This means that using a straight
beam AB would cause the concrete beam to vary in thickness by about 0.85
inches in order for the top of the stringer, and therefore the steps themselves, to follow the path of the true helix. This variation, being noticable,
was deemed unacceptable.
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Back to reality
Back in the real world, the carpenter actually avoided the problem that he
posed he used a different approach entirely. In the photograph in Figure
5, we see how the radial beams are supported independently by vertical
columns. What they did was to build a temporary deck at the level of each
main landing. Then, vertical columns standing on this deck were used to
support the framework and the forms into which the concrete was poured.
They did not use a main beam AB. Nonetheless, I give the carpenter credit
for seeing and caring about the underlying mathematical question that he
raised.
Acknowledgment. I wish to thank the carpenter, Bob Nelson, for bringing
this problem to my attention. The helical stairway now stands in American
Family Childrens Hospital, University of Wisconsin (Madison), Builder: J
H Findorff; Carpenters: Bob Nelson, Jamie Smith and Brian Heble. I also
thank the referee for suggestions that improved the clarity of the paper.
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