Shaking Table Test On Dynamic Instability Of Single-layer Reticultated Dome Under Harmonic Load

Recently, reticulated shell structure has greatly contributed to the unprecedentednationwide construction rush of stadiums and exhibition halls, which often has aspectacular profile, reasonable cross-section force distributions and a large span.Because our country lies in a territory with severe earthquake hazards, researchers hasbeen dedicated to the systematic studies on anti-vibration performance and intensiveearthquake induced collapse mechanism of the landmark large-span space structures,especially the reticulated shell structure. The theoretical researches on the dynamicstability of the reticulated shell have been brought to a rapid developing track withinscholars’ tremendous efforts. According to the latest research outcomes, the reticulatedshell will develop into two probable failure patterns when subjected to violentvibrations, dynamic instability and dynamic strength failure. While researchers achieveimmense theoretical outbreaks, it appears to be insufficient that we make attempts toinvestigate and reveal the failure mechanism of the reticulated shell in the perspective ofexperimental domain, accounting for the paucity of direct demonstrations to support ourtheories and prompt further developments. In order to complement this deficiency, thispaper endeavored to manifest the seismic performance and failure mode of reticulatedshells through a shaking table test on a simplified shell model, whose results would becompared to the numerical simulations. In the end, the gathering experimental data wasclassified and uploaded to a database system, providing a reference for other researchers.The following contents are covered within this paper:(1) Based on the resembled theory, the prototype of a single layer reticulated shellwas predigested and constructed with precise joint positions.(2) The shaking table test was carried out with three procedures, extracting thenatural frequencies and damping ratios of the test model, deriving the correspondingstructural responses (joint motions and member strains) when applied to uniaxialmonotonic increasing harmonic loads, triggering a sudden overall buckling of themodel.(3) The commercial FEA software Abaqus was utilized to simulate the test modeldynamic behavior numerically, where refined model was created and rotary inertias ofjoints and actual base motion records were introduced into the modeling. Three phases,extraction of the natural frequencies and calculation of the dynamic response of thestructure and representation of the collapse, underwent to verify the accuracy of thenumeric results. Finally, the failure pattern of shell model was determined, taking thestructural stiffness, deflection and member plasticity development into account.(4) Adopted the database application to manage and share all the experiment dataon the Internet.