Influence of different cable–membrane connection models on wind-induced responses of an air supported membrane structure with orthogonal cable net

Abstract

Long-span air supported membrane structures are typical wind sensitive buildings, wind load is often their control load. The existing analysis of air supported membrane structures basically assumes that the nodes of the cable net and membrane are bound together, the slide or separation between the cable net and the membrane under wind load is not considered. The lack of cable–membrane​ contact model causes hidden danger to the safety of wind resistance performance of long-span air supported membrane structures. In this paper, ANSYS software is adopted for structural analysis, the cable net of air supported membrane structure is divided into many small cable segments, and nodes of all cable segments form point-surface contact pairs with the membrane surface, the joints of all cable segments may bond, slide or separate from the membrane surface. The cable–membrane contact model is used to analyze the wind-induced response of an air supported membrane structure with orthogonal cable net, and the results are compared with the wind-induced response of the cable–membrane binding model. The analysis results of the two models show that: when the cable–membrane contact model is adopted, the displacement and stress responses of the membrane are greatly increased under strong wind load due to the separation of the membrane and the cable net, the axial force distribution of the cable is more uniform due to the sliding between the cable net and membrane. The cable–membrane binding model overestimates the restraint effect of cable net on membrane, in order to better optimize the design of long-span air supported membrane structures, it is necessary to consider adopting cable–membrane contact model.