| Title |
Shape-Finding Analysis of Shell Structures by Nonlinear Membrane Theory |
| Abstract |
A numerical procedure is proposed to find the shapes of thinshell structures. The shapes for the thin shell is defined by equilibrium configuration of flexible membrane which is subjected to the primary loading. The nonlinear effect of membrane is considered in the formulation of stiffness matrix and assuming that the forces of membrane element can be expressed in terms of generalized plane stressesThe proposed procedure is applied to the case of dome and trapezoidal shell structures. In dome structure, the result indicated that bending moment in the membrane dome are considerably less than the corresponding moments in the spherical dome. And, by varing the elastic modulus of the flexible membrane, a family of trapezoidal shell shapes can be found. |