Aula aberta do Professor Krisztián Hincz

 

21 de maio, 15:30-16:30 Membrane structures I., General questions
Membrane structures are lightweight, economical, and environmentally friendly with unique, exciting shapes. Since they are constituted by a very thin membrane with negligible bending stiffness, the structure's shape must be adequately determined to transfer loads to the supporting structural elements only with tension. The presentation introduces the main steps of the design, from form-finding to static analysis through cutting pattern generation. The applied Dynamic Relaxation Method (DRM), the various groups of membrane structures, and the applied materials' unique properties are also presented.

22 de maio, 14:00-15:00 Membrane structures II., Special topics
The wind load analysis of tensile membrane structures is a critical question. Not only the maximum membrane stresses due to wind load must be compared with the tensile strength of the membrane material, but the slack areas and the displacements also have to be analysed to avoid undesirable fluttering, which, in the worst case, can lead to the collapse of the structure. The first difficulty of the wind analysis is the determination of the wind pressure distributions on the hyperbolic membranes. Since the design codes do not provide the pressure coefficients of complex hyperbolic shapes, those can be determined based on costly and time-consuming wind tunnel tests or with the help of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. The experimental tests and the wind pressure maps of some membrane structures will be presented in the first part. In the second part of the presentation, some recent research projects in the field of inflated structures will be briefly introduced.