Static stability analysis of steel single-layer spherical latticed shells with and without roofing systems

Abstract

This paper investigated the static stability behaviours of H-shaped beam steel single-layer reticulated shells with and without roofing systems by proposing a new verified numerical modelling method. The analysis was conducted in three main steps: shells without roofing system analysis, shells with purlins analysis, and shells with full roofing systems analysis. In the case of shells with purlins or full roofing systems, the MTC-Tie constraint in the Abaqus program was used to replace the purlin hangers. This can reduce the element numbers of the shells during the analysis and make the analysis more efficient. Based on the analysis results, the purlin and roofing panels improved the static stability and increased the ultimate buckling capacity of single-layer reticulated shells, which can be considered. At the same time, the stress distributions of shells with and without roofing systems are different; thus, the stress values of shells with roofing systems could not be replaced by the stress values of shells without roofing systems. Accordingly, the influence coefficients of single-layer reticulated shells’ spans, rise/span ratios, initial imperfections, materials, joint semi-rigidities, purlins, and roofing panels were calculated. Based on that, the approximate equations for the ultimate buckling capacity of steel single-layer reticulated shells with H-shaped beams considering different design parameters were proposed, and equations for calculating the roofing purlin influence coefficient were derived.