Failure Analysis of a Cable Dome Due to Cable Slack or Rupture: Fid-Bau Portal

Failure Analysis of a Cable Dome Due to Cable Slack or Rupture

Zhu, Ming-Liang / Dong, Shi-Lin / Yuan, Xing-Fei

Cable dome is a new type of spatial structure, consisting of cables and struts. Its properties such as its static, dynamic and stability behavior were widely studied, but the failure of the dome is rarely investigated due to its complexity and the limitation of traditional methods. The Vector Form Intrinsic Finite Element method (VFIFE) is a recently proposed method based on a combination of vector mechanics and numerical calculation. Without establishing the stiffness matrix, it is easy to solve problems related to rigid body motion, large deformation and large displacement. It is thus used to simulate the whole failure process of cable domes. The fundamentals of VFIFE are first summarized and the formulations for rod elements and prestressed cable elements are presented. Then the failure analysis of a dome due to cable slack or rupture is conducted by taking a Levy cable dome as an example. Numerical results show that the dome can continue to bear load after some cables slack and will fail after some hoop cable rupture. The dynamic effects caused by cable rupture should not be ignored. Numerical results also indicate that the VFIFE method is effective in the full-process analysis of structures involving rigid body motion, large deformation or vibrations.