Reparación y cuelgue de la escultura "El elogio del agua", de Eduardo Chillida. Resolución del equilibrio de un mecanismo

Reparation and suspension of the sculpture "El elogio del agua", of Eduardo Chillida. Solution of the equilibriu of a mechanism

This paper resumes the process of reparation and suspension of the sculpture "El Elogio del Agua", of Eduardo Chillida. The sculpture is suspended by four prestressed cables which, starting from the main body of the sculpture, are anchoraged into the surrounding steep rock-faces. Such suspension system makes the sculpture a mechanism, so that, once hung, it will displace and rotate until it encounters a balanced position. The determination of such position implies solving a non linear system, whose 10 variables are the 6 rigid-body motions (three displacements and three rotations) plus the tension on each cable, and whose equations are the six equilibrium equations plus 4 strain-compatibility equations of the cables. This non-linear calculation model was applied to the resolution of the sculptures response to several actions, in order to determine precisely its final position and rotations, strictly conditioned by the author?s desires. Therefore, the suspension system designed consisted of a movable anchorage block with the possibility of varying the cables length, so that it allowed modifying the equilibrium position of the sculpture in order to achieve and absolutely horizontal balanced position. The system designed inherited technologies applied to cable-stayed bridges, thus offering an optimum performance against corrosion and fatigue, the ultimate reasons of the collapse of the previous suspension system.