Cable roof with stiffening girder and flexible membrane shell
The framework of the roof, considered in the research, is a two-chord truss-like structure. The chords are joined by vertical struts. They are made of high-strength steel cables. A flexible polymer membrane is attached to the restraining chord. The opposite supports of the roof are joined by a girder made of ordinary structural steel. The girder mitigates deformations of the truss under non-uniform external loads. It is loosely connected to the vertical struts. The loose connections (so-called design clearances) prevent overstressing the girder by uniform impacts. Computational technique for static analysis of the cable roof is proposed. The main structural parameters are estimated under the condition of the full use of the material properties. The bearer chord reaches the ultimate limit state under the uniformly distributed transverse load, which is taken by the cable truss in full. A non-uniform impact is split between the truss and the girder by the condition of compatibility of deformations. The expressions for the axial stiffnesses of the chords, the design clearance values, and the allowable deformations of the roof are given. The work contributes to the development of hybrid building constructions by providing the initial data for the conceptual design stage. It allows to validate structural models and to verify the results of numerical computer analysis.