What's the difference between girder and spandrel?

Girder


Definition:

  • (n.) One who girds; a satirist.
  • (n.) One who, or that which, girds.
  • (n.) A main beam; a stright, horizontal beam to span an opening or carry weight, such as ends of floor beams, etc.; hence, a framed or built-up member discharging the same office, technically called a compound girder. See Illusts. of Frame, and Doubleframed floor, under Double.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The refinery was working largely as usual, with steam pouring from vents on the complex of pipes, chimneys and girders which towers over the flatlands of the Humber estuary's south shore.
  • (2) Just offshore, steel girders poke out of the water to frustrate North Korean boats in the event of an invasion.
  • (3) Many are pinned down by huge blocks of concrete, bent iron girders, machinery.
  • (4) It was his first day at work but at 9.30am, barely two hours after he had begun manually counting the potato bags inside the steel girder compound, a Saudi-led airstrike began.
  • (5) Contractors are fitting gleaming walls of glass to girders which lurch at fashionably acute angles.
  • (6) "The podium for the politburo was there," he said, gesturing at an empty space surrounded by steel girders and a damp concrete floor.
  • (7) The structure is currently held up by iron girders put in place in 1947 by the British governor who ruled Palestine in the Mandate era .
  • (8) Several painted iron girders, stored on a field close to the farm, were determined as the source of the poisoning.
  • (9) The vehicle is believed to have been laden with 20 tonnes of steel girders.
  • (10) You can get waves off the ruins of the old west pier , where the steel girders stick out.
  • (11) When he brought the match to a conclusion after nearly three hours with a trademark lob (in a venue where the girders above the court are three centimetres lower than regulations stipulate), he fell to the clay – not his favourite playing surface – and cried uncontrollably.
  • (12) Close by, labourers scale the girders of what will be a massive commercial centre.
  • (13) It is believed to have been laden with 20 tonnes of steel girders.
  • (14) Among the features of the final stretch of the High Line – known as the Rail Yards section – is the 11th Avenue Bridge, an elevated ‘catwalk’ from which visitors can view the park, the cityscape and the Hudson River and the Pershing Square Beams; and a children’s play area constructed from the original line’s framework of steel beams and girders.
  • (15) There was no pavement, so as the traffic thundered past, we walked in the lane with the motorbikes and bicycles, many carrying steel girders that threatened to scythe us in two.
  • (16) Watson trudges past the heavy bags hanging from the steel girders.
  • (17) The students had ripped it down and the metal girders were twisted.
  • (18) Raising the roof, incidentally, is what the International Tennis Federation might have considered before a ball was struck as the girders holding the unbearably bright TV lights were a few centimetres the wrong side of legal height and a couple of Murray lobs almost bounced off them.
  • (19) Photograph: Sean Smith The entire roof of the palace has gone, leaving only a skeleton of red steel girders punctuated by tall trees.
  • (20) With its wood tables and industrial-scale girders and working roaster it's bang on trend.

Spandrel


Definition:

  • (n.) The irregular triangular space between the curve of an arch and the inclosing right angle; or the space between the outer moldings of two contiguous arches and a horizontal line above them, or another arch above and inclosing them.
  • (n.) A narrow mat or passe partout for a picture.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The 57-story Vdara hotel in Las Vegas, a trio of curving glass towers, was the pride of its owners, a gleaming citadel of 1,500 rooms, clad in 3,000 "double-pane acid-etched spandrel glass panels for energy-efficient heating and cooling".
  • (2) The recent introduction of the Fisch II spandrel total ossicular replacement prosthesis (TORP), has provided impressive initial hearing benefits in patients.
  • (3) Furthermore, the diameter of the spandrel shaft is crucially important, with an increase in magnitude of the first natural frequency of 54% for a 25% increase in shaft diameter.