Catenary Vaults

All the details about how to design and construct catenary vaults can be found at the link below.

See Concrete Vault Construction | Sustainable Vaulted Homes & Structures—>

Vaulted Roofs

This is a hanging chain design for catenary vaulted roofs.

I pass over 200 masonry vaults on the 25 minute drive between my place and town (San Miguel). We have a local tradition of vaulted roofs here in central Mexico. The older vaults (200 year +) that are still standing were all well constructed but many of the newer (100 year old) vaults were poorly built. With these vaults it is basically the shape of the roof which is the key to it's long life. It’s sometimes hard to believe that these roofs can stand so long without maintenance.

I feel that my vaults are well built with modern materials and they should last for at least 400 years--and that buoys my enthusiasm.

Notes on Terminology:
Vault, Shell, Thin Shell, Roof Membrane - all the same thing BV - Barrel Vault, form that results from cutting a barrel (cylinder) in half, long ways #66WW - Welded Wire mesh (driveway mesh) For example: #6,6,10,10 WW mesh is 6" X6" X 10 gauge X 10 ga. Don't worry #6666WW (66WW) is not the devil's mesh but actually quite wonderful stuff. Feet and Meters - Here in Mexico we are bilingual. We buy plumbing pipe in inches (diameter) and then cut it into meters. I try to convert everything, but it gets tiresome. Please bear with me.