engineering

Staff (building material)

Staff (building material) is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Staff (building material) rather than just read about it. In short: Staff is a kind of artificial stone used for covering and ornamenting temporary buildings. It is defined as " composition of plaster and fibrous material used for a temporary finish and in ornamental work, as on exposition buildings.".

Key takeaways

Staff (building material) belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Staff (building material) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Staff (building material) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Staff is a kind of artificial stone used for covering and ornamenting temporary buildings. It is defined as " composition of plaster and fibrous material used for a temporary finish and in ornamental work, as on exposition buildings.".

It is chiefly made of plaster of Paris (powdered gypsum), with a little cement, glycerin, and dextrin, mixed with water until it is about as thick as molasses. When staff is cast in molds, it can form any shape. To strengthen it, coarse cloth or bagging, or fibers of hemp or jute, are put into the molds before casting. It becomes hard enough in about a half-hour to be removed and fastened on the building in construction. Staff may easily be bent, sawed, bored, or nailed. Its natural color is murky white, but it may be made to resemble any kind of stone. Staff was invented in France in about 1876 and was used in the construction and ornamentation of the buildings of the Paris Expositions of 1878 and of 1889. It was also largely used in the construction of the buildings of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, at the Omaha and Buffalo Expositions in 1898 and 1901, at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904, and at later expositions, and on temporary buildings of other kinds.

See also Dewey Arch Building material Glazed architectural terra-cotta a material also made into many decorative forms, more permanent than Staff List of building materials

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Staff (building material)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Staff (building material) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Staff (building material) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Staff (building material) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Staff (building material)

In research: Staff (building material) appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Staff (building material) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Staff (building material) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Artificial stone, Building materials, Construction, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Staff (building material) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Staff (building material) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Staff (building material) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Staff (building material) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Staff (building material) in simple terms?

Why does Staff (building material) matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Staff (building material)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Staff (building material).