Optimisation of Cable Dome Structure Design for Progressive Collapse Resistance

Abstract

Since the literature lacks an effective analysis method of collapse mechanisms and optimisation design theory for progressive collapse resistance of cable dome structure, a structural performance-based optimisation approach was proposed to improve the progressive collapse resistance for cable dome structures in this study. First, the dynamic response and collapse model of a cable dome structure were analysed after its members were removed using Ansys LS-DYNA and the full dynamic equivalent load-based instantaneous unloading method. Second, the importance coefficients of the members were calculated to determine the contribution of each member to the progressive collapse resistance of the structure. Finally, a stepwise optimisation solution was proposed by integrating a global optimisation model, which uses the mean of the importance coefficients of all members as the optimisation index, with a local optimisation model, which minimises the maximum member importance coefficient. The results indicated that different members exhibited varying levels of importance in the progressive collapse resistance of the structure, with the inner and outer hoop cables demonstrating the highest levels of importance, followed by the inner upper string of the tension hoop. The other members had low levels of importance. Compared with the cable dome structure based on the Geiger topology, the cable dome structure based on the Levy topology was more resistant to progressive collapse; such resistance decreased as the number of cable-truss frames decreased. Additionally, the local optimisation approach based on the genetic algorithm reduced the maximum member importance coefficient (i.e., that of the outer hoop cable) by 60.26%.