NONLINEAR STABILITY ANALYSIS OF A RADIALLY RETRACTABLE SUSPEN-DOME

摘要

A radially retractable roof structure based on the concept of the suspen-dome is proposed in this paper. The radially foldable bar structure are strengthened by the lower cable-strut system. Then the buckling capacity of a radially retractable suspen-dome was investigated. The geometrically non-linear elastic buckling and elasto-plastic buckling analyses of the hybrid structure were carried out. Then the effects of different structural parameters, such as the rise-span ratio, beam section, area and pre-stress of lower cable-strut systems, on the failure load were investigated. The influence of imperfections on the elasto-plastic buckling loads was also discussed. The results show that the critical buckling load is reduced by taking account of material non-linearity. Furthermore, increasing the rise-to-span ratio or the cross-section area of steel beams notably improves the stability performance of the structure. However, the area and pre-stress of cable-strut systems pose small effect on the structural stability. It can also be found that the suspen-dome is highly imperfection sensitive and the reduction of the failure load due to imperfections is considerable.