Akira Okada

Basic Study on Multi-Bay Horn-Shaped Membrane Roof

Wind loading is the most dominant load for light-weight structures such as membrane roofs. Since the multi-bay horn-shaped membrane roof has a complicated shape and is composed of several horn-units depending on the building type, basic data for the wind-force coefficient has not been reported yet. On the other hand, the multi-bay horn-shaped membrane roof is usually designed using the structural behavior of a one-unit system. Furthermore, the authors consider that the design method must be changed not only according to size and building type but also supporting systems. From the view of these problems, in this paper, the wind-force coefficients for design and analysis are clarified by the wind-tunnel test, and a design method considering the influence of supporting systems under wind loading is proposed.

Wind Tunnel Tests on The Horn-shaped Membrane Roof

Membrane structure is tensile surface structure consisted by textile. The materials used for architectural membranes generally consist of a woven fabric coated with a polymeric resin (Seidel & David, 2009). For example, PVC coated polyester fabrics and PTFE coated glass fabrics are commonly used. Membrane structures provide widespan enclosures of great spatial interest and variety require minimal supporting elements of hard structure and provide very good overall levels of natural daylight. Membrane structures create various forms. In the architecture and civil engineering area, membrane forms and systems are divided into two categories, namely “pneumatic membrane” and “tensile membrane” shown in figure 1 (Saitoh, 2003). The pneumatic membrane such as “BC Place (1983)”

Wind Tunnel Tests on Horn-Shaped Membrane Roof Under the Turbulent Boundary Layer

In this paper, the authors describe about a wind tunnel test for a membrane roof on a civil engineering. Especially, the authors focused on the horn-shaped membrane roof (shown in fig.1). Wind loading is the most dominant load for light-weight structures such as membrane roofs. A wind-force coefficient of typical building type such as box-type is defined in the guideline and the cord, but a wind-force coefficient of complicated shapes such as the hornshaped membrane roof has not been sufficiently reported yet.