Someone mentioned it yesterday. I went, Oooh, how did I miss that?!? I guess Reg wanted the "pretty" side on the inside, and he didn't know about bad guys with tanks. I'm guessing it would be an easy fix to add identical beams on the inside side, if there are more steel beams at the mall construction site.

The holes where Enid puts the rebar or whatever to use as footholds to get over could be covered over with concrete? Again, from the mall construction site. Or maybe at a Lowes--probably people haven't made off with sacks of concrete.

 

engineers have pointed out that structually the beams are better placed on the outside if something is pressing in. For walker protection, it's great. You'd think it would be worse for human invaders coming in, but since both Enid and Nick climbed over the "tough" side of the wall like it was nothing, it probably doesn't make a difference with people, either.

 

WHAT!?????

 

This has been discussed since the moment they were seen.
Of course common sense says they are backwards,now Reg is dead and I think he paid the price for his mistake?

Others think the opposite of course.

It looks like a trap to me the way it is.

 

So they're called braces


And not the engineer, but consensus was that if they are anchored properly they will support through tension instead of compression and be harder to bend under the weight of a horde.

 

Reg was an architect not a member of the army corp of engineers, so even after the world turned to shit and everything he knew turned upside down, he still reverted back to his retarded architect mentality when he designed the walls, focusing more on pretty and usefulness and building only to the requirement at the time with no concerns or planing toward the future of what might happen or what the requirements might be in the future, or designing in a way that allows for easy changes or additions. This is what they teach you in architect class 101, always build only with the existing specs in mind, resort to common sense as a last resort.

To Reg, considering only that the 'strength' of the walls was the only specification and since it would be the same no matter which side the braces are on, he put them on the outside to keep the inside nicer looking and free from the braces being in the way. A bad person being able to walk up the braces or somebody being able to dig a 1 foot shallow hole under the wall weren't even on the radar because walkers don't dig or climb.

 

Hang on there. A couple people pointed out that braces have more capacity in tension than compression. This is true. However, the effort needed to anchor the braces to both the wall and the ground would be prohibitive. It would be much more efficient to have the braces on the inside and brace the braces. Bracing a brace at its midpoint will quadruple its buckling capacity.


ETA: Some people have pointed out that the walls in the comic have no bracing whatsoever. So the likely answer is that the braces were put up to meet certain code requirements, and were put on the outside to keep the actual inhabitants happy.


ETA: I just wrote a letter of recommendation for a student who is applying for an internship at a civil engineering firm. I reminded her that the role of a civil engineer is to make sure that a building doesn't fall down and kill people. In this case I left out the part about how the role of an architect is to make the building look pretty.

 

Just a theory but I remember that on one episode of the Talking Dead they had a guy from the show Myth Busters on and asked them about the group's engineering skills in bracing the walls of the prison. He said that the wooden bracers on the INSIDE of the outer fence were almost useless and that the best method (given their two fence setup) would be to have steel cross bracers between the two fences. One bar going from the top of one wall to the bottom of the other, and vice- versa on teh other side. Forming an X.

Based on conversations when they were at the construction site gathering building supplies we know that they had at least one prior expansion of the wall and that they were currently working on another one. Maybe they are just making the current wall extend outward more but maybe.... the long term plan at Alexandria was to build a second exterior wall around the first wall. It would have bracers facing inward that connected to the existing wall, and its bracers already face outward to connect to the new wall. Bam. Just like what Myth Busters said. It also makes sense to take this approach because that way you get your first wall up quicker to protect the community while you scavenge enough materials to build the larger more sturdy wall.

 

Wow, circles within circles. Centuries from now archaeologists will discover this settlement and expound on the religious significance.

 

its nothing MotherDick Construction can't fix

 

I'd just build a 2nd wall inside the first, get one of those magic excavators that still run 2 years into the ZA, dig a ditch in front of the outer wall and use that dirt to fill the space between the old wall and the new wall build some scaffolding to stand on the inside and be done. You've got a wall that will stop walkers, stop bullets and stop most vehicles. Get yourself one of those Mad Max bus gates for the gate and you're good to go.

Let's not forget that Morgan is here now and that Mo-Fo can build some traps like there is no tomorrow, fixing up the defenses of Alexandria will be a piece of cake for him.

 

Wish I could do screen shots because I've noticed that there are diagonal struts INSIDE the wall.

 

Off topic, but does anyone think the beams being on the outside is how Aaron, Daryl and Morgan got back into ASZ? Rick closed the main gate after Dumb Dumb, I mean Gabriel, didn't close it. Just a thought.

 

No. Deanna sent Spencer to the gate after RMFG did his corpse drop at the summit. Spencer let them in.

 

Oh sit, did I really miss that? Gotta stop drinking and watching.