Funicularity through External Posttensioning: Design Philosophy and Computational Tool
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 142, Issue 2
Abstract
Funicular geometries, which follow the idealized shapes of hanging chains under a given loading, are recognized as materially efficient structural solutions because they exhibit no bending under design loading, usually self-weight. However, there are circumstances in which nonstructural conditions make a funicular geometry difficult or impossible. This paper presents a new design philosophy, based on graphic statics, that shows how bending moments in a nonfunicular two-dimensional curved geometry can be eliminated by adding forces through an external posttensioning system. An interactive parametric tool is introduced for finding the layout of a posttensioning tendon for any structural geometry. The effectiveness of this approach is shown with several new design proposals.
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Acknowledgments
This work has been done through a collaborative agreement between the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States. The authors wish to express their gratitude for the financial support received from the Chair of Structural Concrete of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. The authors want to sincerely thank Corentin Fivet and Juney Lee from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for sharing several valuable insights on graphic statics and for greatly improving the design examples and graphics in this paper, respectively. The authors are grateful to John Ochsendorf from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for all the valuable information and support provided.
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Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 142 • Issue 2 • February 2016
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 20, 2015
Accepted: Aug 16, 2015
Published online: Sep 30, 2015
Published in print: Feb 1, 2016
Discussion open until: Feb 29, 2016
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