In mechanical engineering

Mechanical engineering

Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...

, stressed skin is a type of rigid construction, intermediate between monocoque

Monocoque

Monocoque is a construction technique that supports structural load by using an object's external skin, as opposed to using an internal frame or truss that is then covered with a non-load-bearing skin or coachwork...

 and a rigid frame with a non-loaded covering:

• Rigid frame: geodesic dome
  Geodesic dome
  A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...
  
  s, structures built up of tetrahedron
  Tetrahedron
  In geometry, a tetrahedron is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, three of which meet at each vertex. A regular tetrahedron is one in which the four triangles are regular, or "equilateral", and is one of the Platonic solids...
  
  s, early 20th century car
  Čar
  Čar is a village in the municipality of Bujanovac, Serbia. According to the 2002 census, the town has a population of 296 people.-References:...
  
  s, some 21st century truck
  Truck
  A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...
  
  s, most chair
  Chair
  A chair is a stable, raised surface used to sit on, commonly for use by one person. Chairs are most often supported by four legs and have a back; however, a chair can have three legs or could have a different shape depending on the criteria of the chair specifications. A chair without a back or...
  
  s, etc. have their structure concentrated in a small part of their surface. These structures may or may not be covered, but the covering contributes little strength to the larger structure.
• Monocoque: small boats, modern racing cars, modern airplanes, and insect
  Insect
  Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
  
  s use structural elements that are spread, nearly equally, over much of their surfaces.
• A stressed skin structure has its compression-taking elements localized and it tension-taking elements distributed. Typically, the main frame has rectangular structure and is triangulated
  Polygon triangulation
  In computational geometry, polygon triangulation is the decomposition of a polygonal area P into a set of triangles, i.e., finding the set of triangles with pairwise non-intersecting interiors whose union is P....
  
   by the covering.

Examples

In a cubic box edges themselves are not rigid, because the box can be skewed without changing their lengths. Adding diagonals, even if they take only tension and not compression, fixes this because the box cannot deviate from right angles without stretching some of the diagonals. Sometimes thin flexible members like wires are used. When a covering, which usually serves other purposes as well, is used, the structure is said to have a stressed skin design.

Other examples include nearly all airplanes, the Lotus Seven

Lotus Seven

The Lotus Seven is a small, simple, lightweight two-seater open-top sports car produced by Lotus Cars between 1957 and 1972....

, moderately light outdoor rubber powered model airplanes, some early racing cars and most tent

Tent

A tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over or attached to a frame of poles or attached to a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using guy ropes tied to stakes or tent pegs...

s.

External links

• https://www.cnet.navy.mil/nascweb/sas/stress.htm