Statics of fan vaulting: current state of knowledge and open issues

Abstract

Fan vaults, the most spectacular structural form of the English Gothic architecture, has been admired by architect lovers for many centuries. The mechanics of fan vaulting raises several interesting questions, most of which are still unanswered, even though the maintenance and restoration of historic buildings would require the deep understanding how these fascinating structures work, how they respond to mechanical effects and how they carry their loads. The last major study on fan vaulting was published four decades ago, still in 1980, and since then there were only a few publications about the topic, rare and rather scattered. On the other hand, several modern methods were born since then which could advantageously be used for the analysis of the mechanics of fan vault. This paper gives an overview on the history and constructional types of fan vaults, then introduces what we know today about their statics; shortly introduces the most important modern calculation methods that are potentially usable for such studies and gives a list of open issues worthy of investigating.