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Building a trebuchet from scratch and finding the best proportions,
weights, angles etc by trial and error certainly works ..well, that's
how the Grey Co's first machines were done... but if you could model
the rock-throwing beasts mathematically then think of the work and
possibly wasted effort you could save.
Writing a good trebuchet simulator has been a project
attempted by several hurling mathematicians - but the simplicity of the
trebuchet's basic layout can be a little misleading. The complexity of
the machine's motions on motions means that the mathematics gets pretty
daunting rather quickly. To simulate a real-world situation in a mathematical model you need to make some assumptions and set limits. All simulations do this, so check whether the assumptions made are appropriate to the machine you are interested in.
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"The Algorithmic Beauty of Trebuchets"
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This site was created by Donald B. Siano. It has
versions of his fine simulation of a hinged-bucket trebuchet to suit
almost everybody’s computer situation and computing inclinations. This
style of trebuchet is the traditional one powered by a box-of-rocks
hanging from the short end of the beam. There is a Javascript-based calculator, a simulator using Mathematica, an Adobe Acrobat document with lots of trebuchet information - plus listings for the simulator in Basic, Fortran and C ... unbeatable! This is probably the best simulator for traditional trebuchets available.
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Trebuchet for Windows ("Wintreb")
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This program used to be downloaded from the site of
Civil Engineering Software. It was developed by Major Steven J Ressler
of the Civil Engineering Division of the Department of Civil and
Mechanical Engineering, United States Military Academy, West Point. It is something of a classic among trebuchet simulators and led the way for many other attempts. Wintreb assumes that the counterweight is rigidly attached to the beam, rather than sitting in a free-swinging bucket. This is certainly true of a number of modern reconstructions, and there's also a few Medieval drawings (but not many) showing this style. Although Civilsoft no longer support this venerable simulation program, it still exists out there and this link will take you to one of its "foster homes" - Leeds University. |
There are other quality trebuchet simulators out there, and I'll add them to this specialised links page when I can. If you know of one that you think that other trebuchet fans would find useful, please email me with the details.
| Last Edited: Oct 2000 |
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© Russell Miners 2000. |
