Pre-stressed Geodesic Gridshell

Conference poster, 2018

Timber gridshells can cover large spaces with minimum material. However, with long-term creep deformations, small cross sections and high elasticity, there are potential stability issues. Historically, pre-stressing systems have been shown to prevent instability modes in unstable structures. In this project we investigate the benefits of pre-stressing a geodesic elastic bending-active gridshells serving as a lecture pavilion. Digital analysis and physical tests are interactively combined to study and implement various modelling and analysis techniques, pre-stress configurations and connection details. It is found that an internal pre-stressing system can significantly increase the stability of in terms of eigenfrequencies.