Design Theory And Experiment Research Of Cable Dome

Cable Dome is a kind of space trusses which reflect the character of Tensegrity System. For its novel shape and ingenious idea and economic value, it is widely used in practical projects. Some research work is carried out in this paper concerning the theory and experiment of cable dome.Form finding of cable domes is one of the key engineering problems. The rigid displacement which is comprised in the process, make the analysis more complex. In this paper, a method based on modified dynamic relaxation is presented, and the problem of rigid displacement is therefore effectively solved. The method includes two steps: first, releasing the stretched cables, second, supposing the axial force at two ends of each released cable instead. This method is convenient in calculation and clear in conception. Case study and model experiment indicate that it is applicable to the simulation of construction process of various cable domes and cable-strut tension structures.The cable dome has no stiffness or load carrying capacity unless it has been prestressed. The subsequent analysis is based on a success prestressing design, so the analysis of force finding is very important. A new force finding method named imbalance force iterative method is proposed in the paper, which can overcome some limitations of integrity feasible prestressing method. For instance, even if assigning groups by mistake, the prestressing distribution that satisfies the known geometry form can also be found. This method possess good stability and calculation efficiency, and case examples show that it is applicable to the force finding of large and complicated cable domes.In this paper, the structural behaviors of the Levy dome under uniform distributed load are studied. The effects of three parameters, such as prestress of cable hoop, rise-span ratio and height of struts, on static behavior of the structures are discussed in detail, which are concerned by designers particularly. Finally, some useful conclusions are obtained.The struts of cable dome are the indispensable parts of structure and act as extremely important function. Buckling of struts would lead to invalidation of the whole structure. So the failure mechanisms of cable domes based on buckling of struts, subjected to static loads, are studied in this paper. The criteria for discrimination of structure failure are proposed for practical application, and the corresponding ultimate loads are obtained.In this paper, detailed experiment was conducted on a model of cable dome with diameter of 4.8m, and the behaviors of model in the form finding process and subjected to nonsymmetrical loads are investigated. The experimental results indicate initial length of members, gravity effect and prestress loss etc are the key issues of cable dome design. The results also approve the methods of form finding and force finding proposed by authors are reliable and effective, as well as the non-conservation of cable dome. At the end of the paper, some conclusions are summarized and the problems that should be studied further are put forward.