Thin corrugated-edge shells inspired by Nervi’s dome: Numerical insight about their mechanical behaviour

Abstract

During the last decades, the constant evolution of the construction systems has led to the possibility of carrying out increasingly complex architectural project. Among the wide range of construction systems, thin concrete shells with corrugated-edge stand out for their relevance.In this paper, the mechanical behaviour of thin concrete corrugated-edge shell inspired by Nervi’s Flaminio dome has been analysed in detail, considering different load configurations (self-weight, uniform normal pressure and antisymmetric vertical load) and constraints (pure membrane vs. displacements restrained boundary conditions).Non-linear static analysis has been performed to assess the vertical load-bearing capacity of the corrugated-edge shell considering a Concrete Damaged Plasticity (CDP) constitutive model and linear and non-linear buckling analyses have been carried out to evaluate the effects of the corrugation on buckling behaviour.The results obtained from linear and non-linear analyses have been compared with those obtained for a concrete thin smooth-edge shell having the same geometric global characteristics. The comparison highlighted improvements provided by corrugated-edge in terms of structural behaviour.