The world’s oldest wooden pagoda was built with no nails nearly 1000 years ago in Yingxian, China. During the past ten centuries the 67 m tall building has survived countless earthquakes, thunderstorms and wars. To understand its remarkable structural resilience and durability, a comprehensive analysis has been carried out. This paper describes the particular features of the building, including the extensive use of strong but flexible, multi-layered ‘dougong’ brackets, semi-rigid timber joints and the lack of a structural connection to the foundation. These characteristics are then analysed to determine how they function under extreme loading. A combination of energy-absorbing design, good drainage, sound foundations and woodworm-eating swallows appears to explain its extraordinary longevity.
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1 November 2017
Research Article|
March 08 2017
Solving the mystery of China’s thousand-year-old wooden pagoda
Jitao Zhong, PhD;
College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China
(corresponding author: zhongjitao@126.com)
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Lai Wang, PhD;
Lai Wang, PhD
Professor of College of Civil Engineering and Architecture
Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China
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Yunfeng Li, PhD;
Yunfeng Li, PhD
Professor of College of Civil Engineering and Architecture
Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China
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Man Zhou, PhD
Man Zhou, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Earth Resources Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
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(corresponding author: zhongjitao@126.com)
Publisher: Emerald Publishing
Received:
September 01 2016
Accepted:
January 30 2017
Online ISSN: 1751-7672
Print ISSN: 0965-089X
ICE Publishing: All rights reserved
2017
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Civil Engineering (2017) 170 (4): 169–173.
Article history
Received:
September 01 2016
Accepted:
January 30 2017
Citation
Zhong J, Wang L, Li Y, Zhou M (2017), "Solving the mystery of China’s thousand-year-old wooden pagoda". Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Civil Engineering, Vol. 170 No. 4 pp. 169–173, doi: https://doi.org/10.1680/jcien.16.00034
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