Another Mortal Life

"Life is a structural beam, with the body as concrete and the mind as the steel reinforcement"
"But there would be top reinforcement, and bottom reinforcement.... "
"So let's bring in the soul too"
"Soul- top, mind- bottom ?"
"Obviously, the soul must be higher."
"That fits for you perfectly!"
"??"
"Your mind, you would agree, is in your knees!"
"haha :D"
"But some people say they decide with their hearts. How about that?!"
"God was no perfect engineer!"
"Can't we say it's the transverse reinforcement for shear?"
"I would think of the heart as some destabilizing factor than a 'reinforcement'!"
"The destabilization, we should attribute to excess transverse reinforcement.."
"hehe. the Cardiac Crunch?"
"Yes! :D"
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Hello everybody! Sorry for keeping you guys waiting for.. 20 mins. Nothing new about that, right? Anyway, I'm sure you used this time for some pretty enlightening discussions amongst yourselves. Today we'll discuss the design considerations for Life. Let's list them:
1. For any Life in 'Loaded' condition, it's the mind (the bottom Rf) that takes care of all the tension.
2. The body (concrete), is weak in tension. The mnemonic for remembering this is "The tough men are always referred to as 'men of steel', not as 'men of concrete'!"
3. The Architect (Yeah, yeah, That Fucker!), couldn't care less how the structure would perform under load. He was only too happy marveling at the external beauty of his creation. It's the job of us Ingenio-errers to provide proper reinforcements, considering a Design Life of 50 years.
4. A safety factor of 1.4 may be taken for calamities such as Communal Riots, Food Shortage etc, though it would depend heavily on the powers that be in the years to come.
5. An under-reinforced Life would fail in tension. An over-reinforced one, apart from being a waste of intellectual capital, is also likely to fail in shear.
6. Unnecessary application of the heart (the stirrups) is discouraged. The concrete tends to fall apart when excess stirrups are provided.
7. The grade of concrete, and the grade of steel, are chosen according to the conditions the structure has to perform in. Some industries need a very good quality of concrete, while others, of steel.
8. The types of concrete (male and female) were earlier supposed to differ a lot in their performance. There also were notions regarding their suitability in different working conditions. But later on it was found that both can be used equally efficiently in all types of conditions. The design process for the two, of course, is a little different. For example, type-F concrete needs 1.8 times more shear-stirrups than type-M. So, the heart is a very important parameter in type-F Life design.

Well, that's about it, guys. Tomorrow we'll discuss the role of the top Rf, and the detailing. In the coming classes we'll also discuss the concepts of renovation and euthanisia.

Good day!

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"Ok, now let's discuss the detailing."
"You're such a maggu."