Research on the Static Behaviour of a Suspen Dome with Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) Tensegrity System

Abstract

The study for this paper investigated the feasibility of using carbon fibre reinforced polymer as the tensegrity system in a suspen dome for which steel cables are currently used to construct. The objective is to find out if carbon fibre reinforced polymer cables, which are becoming material of choice for its efficiency and effectiveness, can replace steel successfully as the tensegrity system in a suspen dome. Based on bond theory, the length and structure of the anchorage for the hoop and radial cable were optimized by finite element analysis. Similarly, a uniaxial tensile test was carried out to study the failure mechanism and to verify the anchoring bearing capacity. The experimental results showed that the failure mode of the anchoring system was mainly slip failure. The stress state of the anchorage system is in relation with the load size. The anchorage system designed in this study satisfies the requirement for the subsequent test for carbon fibre reinforced polymer cable in a suspen dome. For this purpose, a small-scale model of a suspen dome with 4 m span-to-0.4 m height ratio 1:10 was successfully built and designed to evaluate static performance for imposed load on the single reticulated layer. The single reticulated layer of the suspen dome is subjected to stresses while the radial and hoop cables are in tension. With the imposed load, the displacement and stresses of the structure linearly increase and the whole structure is in elastic state. Similarly, models were established on ANSYS platform to simulate loading conditions with mechanical properties of steel and carbon fibre reinforced polymer tensegrity system with an elastic range and comparison made. The results show that under the same loading and boundary conditions the stress level and displacement at measuring points of the structure are in good correlation. Hence, the study shows that carbon fibre reinforced polymer cables have a potential advantage to substitute steel cables in a suspen dome.