Editing Space frame (section)

==Applications==
Chief space frame applications include:

'''Buildings'''
* Industrial structures:
** [[Factory|Factories]]
** [[Warehouse]]s, 
* Commercial, entertainment, and service facilities: 
** [[Sports hall]]s
** Conference halls, pavilions, and [[exhibition center]]s
** [[Stadium]]s
** [[Museum]]s and fair houses
** [[Shopping mall]]s
** [[Airport]]s

'''[[#Vehicles|Vehicles]]''':
** Aircraft
** Automobiles
** Motorcycles
** Bicycles
** Spacecraft 

'''Architectural design elements''' 
** [[Atrium (architecture)|Atriums]]
** [[Geodesic]]s

===Construction===
Space frames are a common feature in modern building construction; they are often found in large roof spans in [[Modernism|modernist]] commercial and industrial buildings.

Examples of buildings based on space frames include:
* [[Stansted Airport]], by [[Foster + Partners]]
* [[Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong|Bank of China Tower]] and the [[Louvre Pyramid]], by [[I. M. Pei]]
* [[Rogers Centre]] by [[Rod Robbie]] and [[Michael Allen (architect)|Michael Allan]]
* [[McCormick Place]] East in [[Chicago]]
*[[Arena das Dunas]] in Natal, Brazil by [[Populous (company)|Populous]]
* [[Eden Project]] in Cornwall, England
* [[Ericsson Globe|Globen]], Sweden - Dome with diameter of 110 m, (1989)
* [[Biosphere 2]] by [[John P. Allen]], [[Phil Hawes]], [[Peter Jon Pearce]] in Oracle, Arizona
* [[Jacob K. Javits Convention Center]], [[New York City, New York]]
*[[Palau Sant Jordi]] in Barcelona, Spain by [[Arata Isozaki]]
* [[Sochi International Airport]] in [[Sochi]], [[Russia]]
* Entrance to [[Six Flags Magic Mountain]]
* [[Taoyuan International Airport|Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport]] airport terminal 2
* [[Harbin Grand Theatre|Harbin Opera House]] in China by [[Ma Yansong]]
* [[Heydar Aliyev Center|Hedyar Aliyev Centre]] in Azerbaijan by [[Zaha Hadid]] 

Large portable stages and lighting [[Crane (machine)#Gantry|gantries]] are also frequently built from space frames and octet trusses.

===Vehicles===
[[Image:Yeoman YA-1 vs CA-6 Wackett frame.jpg|thumb|Yeoman YA-1 vs CA-6 Wackett frames.]]

==== Aircraft ====
The [[CAC Wackett|CAC CA-6 Wackett]] and [[Yeoman Cropmaster|Yeoman YA-1 Cropmaster 250R]] aircraft were built using roughly the same welded steel-tube fuselage frame.

Many early "whirlybird"-style exposed-boom helicopters had tubular space-frame booms, such as the [[Bell 47]] series.

==== Cars ====
Space frames are sometimes used in the chassis designs of [[automobiles]] and [[motorcycles]]. In both a space-frame and a tube-frame chassis, the suspension, engine, and body panels are attached to a skeletal frame of tubes, and the body panels have little or no structural function. By contrast, in a [[unibody]] or [[monocoque]] design, the body serves as part of the structure.

Tube-frame chassis pre-date space frame chassis and are a development of the earlier [[ladder chassis]]. The advantage of using tubes rather than the previous open-channel sections is that they resist [[torsion (mechanics)|torsion]]al forces better. Some tube chassis were little more than a ladder chassis made with two large-diameter tubes, or even a single tube as a [[backbone chassis]]. Although many tubular chassis developed additional tubes and were even described as "space frames", their design was rarely correctly stressed as a space frame, and they behaved mechanically as a tube-ladder chassis, with additional brackets to support the attached components. The distinction of the true space frame is that all the forces in each strut are either tensile or compressive, never bending.<ref name="Ludvigsen, Colin Chapman, 153" /> Although these additional tubes did carry some extra load, they were rarely diagonalised into a rigid space frame.<ref name="Ludvigsen, Colin Chapman, 153" >{{harvnb|Ludvigsen|Colin Chapman|page=153–154}}</ref>

An earlier contender for the first true space-frame chassis is the one-off Chamberlain 8 race "special" built by brothers Bob and Bill Chamberlain in [[Melbourne]], Australia, in 1929.<ref>https://primotipo.com/2015/07/24/chamberlain-8-by-john-medley-and-mark-bisset/. ‘The Chamberlain An Australian Story’ John Hazelden </ref> Others attribute vehicles were produced in the 1930s by designers such as [[Buckminster Fuller]] and [[William Bushnell Stout]] (the [[Dymaxion car|Dymaxion]] and the [[Stout Scarab]]) who understood the theory of the true space frame from either architecture or aircraft design.<ref name="Ludvigsen, Colin Chapman, 150" >{{Cite book |title=Colin Chapman: Inside the Innovator |last=Ludvigsen |first=Karl |author-link=Karl Ludvigsen |publisher=Haynes Publishing |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-84425-413-2 |ref={{harvid|Ludvigsen|Colin Chapman}} |pages=150–164}}</ref>

A post-WW2 attempt to build a racing car space frame was the [[Cisitalia D46]] of 1946.<ref name="Ludvigsen, Colin Chapman, 150" /> This used two small-diameter tubes along each side, but they were spaced apart by vertical smaller tubes, and so were not diagonalised in any plane. A year later, [[Porsche]] designed their [[Porsche 360|Type 360]] for [[Cisitalia]]. As this included diagonal tubes, it can be considered a true space frame and arguably the first mid-rear engined design.<ref name="Ludvigsen, Colin Chapman, 150" />

[[File:Jaguar C-Type Frame.JPG|thumb|right|[[Jaguar C-Type]] frame]]

The [[Maserati Tipo 61]] of 1959 (Birdcage) is often thought of as the first, but in 1949, [[Robert Eberan von Eberhorst]] designed the [[Jowett Jupiter]] exhibited at that year's [[London Motor Show]]; the Jowett went on to take a class win at the 1950 Le Mans 24hr. Later, [[TVR]], the small British car manufacturers, developed the concept and produced an alloy-bodied two-seater on a multi-tubular chassis, which appeared in 1949.

[[Colin Chapman]] of [[Lotus Cars|Lotus]] introduced his first "production" car, the [[Lotus Mark VI|Mark VI]], in 1952. This was influenced by the [[Jaguar C-Type]] chassis, another with four tubes of two different diameters, separated by narrower tubes. Chapman reduced the main tube diameter for the lighter Lotus, but did not reduce the minor tubes any further, possibly because he considered that this would appear flimsy to buyers.<ref name="Ludvigsen, Colin Chapman, 153" /> Although widely described as a space frame, Lotus did not build a true space-frame chassis until the [[Lotus Mark VIII|Mark VIII]], with the influence of other designers, with experience from the aircraft industry.<ref name="Ludvigsen, Colin Chapman, 153" />

[[Image:Kitcar (8906407466).jpg|thumb|Chilean kitcar showing off its space frame structure (2013).]]
A large number of [[kit car]]s use space frame construction, because manufacturing them in small quantity requires only simple and inexpensive [[jig (tool)|jig]]s, and it is relatively easy for an amateur designer to achieve good stiffness with a space frame.

A drawback of the space-frame chassis is that it encloses much of the working volume of the car and can make access for both the driver and to the engine difficult. The [[Mercedes-Benz 300 SL]] "Gullwing" received its iconic upward-opening doors when its tubular space frame made using regular doors impossible.

Some space frames have been designed with removable sections, joined by bolted pin joints. Such a structure had already been used around the engine of the [[Lotus Mark III]].<ref name="Ludvigsen, Colin Chapman, 151" >{{harvnb|Ludvigsen|Colin Chapman|page=151}}</ref>  Although somewhat inconvenient, an advantage of the space frame is that the same lack of bending forces in the tubes that allow it to be modeled as a [[pin-jointed truss|pin-jointed structure]] also means that creating such a removable section need not reduce the strength of the assembled frame.
{{Multiple image
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| image1 = Moulton @ the MoMA.jpg
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| caption1 = [[Moulton Bicycle]] at the [[Museum of Modern Art]]
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| caption2 = 2006 [[Ducati]] Monster S2R 1000
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==== Motorcycles and bicycles ====
Italian motorbike manufacturer [[Ducati]] extensively uses tube-frame chassis on its models.

Space frames have also been used in [[bicycle]]s, which readily favor stressed triangular sectioning.