Load-Dependent Mechanical Behavior of Membrane Materials and Its Effect on the Static Behaviors of Membrane Structures

摘要

This paper presents a systematic series of tests and analysis on the mechanical properties of membrane structures under static loading. First, the uniaxial and biaxial tests are conducted to study the mechanical properties of coated fabrics under different loading protocols. Then, the model experiments are carried out to evaluate the mechanical behaviors of membrane structures under uniform loading. Finally, the finite-element analysis is conducted to compare with the experiment results. Results show that with proper processed, the strength of double-layer membrane can achieve 1.8 times that of single-layer membrane. The loading history has significant effects on the mechanical properties of coated fabrics. The numerical results using the elastic constants of the material without initial loading are relatively compatible with the experiment data. Besides, slightly differences are still observed between the load-deflection curves of experiment results and numerical calculation. This is because the mechanical behaviors of experiment models contain both the geometric and material nonlinearity, while the material nonlinearity is ignored in the numerical calculation.