Tangential developable surfaces and their application in real structures

Abstract

A class of developable surfaces contains cylindrical, conical, and tangential developable surfaces. Tangential developable surfaces are ruled surfaces of zero Gaussian curvature with cuspidal edges. They give great opportunities to architects and engineers for realization of their creative projects. Both the theoretical researches in the area of geometry of torses and strength analysis of shells and the influence of these researches on the application of torses in practice are shown. A presented research demonstrated that torses found the application in shipbuilding, aircraft construction, mechanical engineering, in architecture and building, engineering equipment and communications, in road building, in anti-erosive banks, topography, and cartography, clothing articles of light industry, in sculptural forms, and in modelling with developable surfaces. It was confirmed by the references on great number of published works on the subject, real examples from practice, and by handing in 14 illustrations of real objects.