INTRODUCTION T0 BENT SURFACE STRUCTURES To arrive at some initial understanding of bent surface structures an awareness of their origins in an architectural historical context is developed. Further appreciation is gen- erated by pointing to examples in nature as analogs for curvilinear surface forms. Then the organization of various common surface geometries is presented. The last part of this chapter is most important; there the membrane forces for common surfaces under typical loading will be derived. They establish an essential basis for understanding the rigid and soft shells of the following chapters, 7.1 THE SHELL STRUCTURE IN NATURE Living organisms are constantly changing and adjusting to new external. pressures; they are transforming in time and space. Their formal response has always been intriguing to designers and a constant source for new discoveries, though they can never fully under- stand the forces and principles that shape the organism. Some mathematicians, architects, scientists, poets, and artists have fully concentrated on only the geometry in nature in order to recognize the conformity, and order of proportions defining space as expressed by lines, surfaces, and shapes; that is, they have tried to unveil the “Divine Order.” For instance, the formal features of symmetry and regularity are always reflected by the beau- tiful snowflake crystals though they are never the same. Their patterns remind us of the minute skeletal shell structures of the diatoms (marine algae) and radiolaria (unicellular organisms). These skeletons reveal an extraordinary complexity and delicacy of geometry as well as a nearly endless variety of shapes and surface structures. They seem to corre- spond to architectural constructions and to illustrate basic building concepts such as least. weight by employinga minimum solid ribbing, that is, accepting the structural engineering analog, Some of the radiolaria even encompass properties of triangulated, stressed-skin shells. There is an abundance of surface structures in nature that are not just to be found on the microscopic scale; some typical examples are shown in Fig. 7.1. Common rigid shell forms are the shells of eggs, snails, turtles, mussels, skulls, hollow horns (e.g., goat, sheep), clay nests of ovenbirds, nests of the weaverbirds, etc.; all these shells express an un- 386soejamg o1eeg Jo wojyeseueD ae ‘suoniuyed tes8ueDwets uoneoiiday eens. suojiesepisuog jesoineueg sweiekg esejang jo Uo}ye10UED c74 The Membrane Forces 397 and 7.4 on an introductory level only, but then will be dealt with in more detail in the context of shell and tensile membrane discussion Basic features of geometry are identified first. The curve is the most fundamental Property of the surface. Important characteristics of planar curves have already been discussed in the sections on cables and arches, such as the shape and the length of the curve, and the normals and tangents to the curve. In addition, the area, the location of the centroid, and the moment of inertia of the area below the curve are familiar characteristics, However, surfaces can be defined by many different curves, therefore some special curvatures must be identified: the principal curvatures, the Gaussian curvature, and the mean curvature. These curvatures characterize the surface as a single- or double-curvature system, where the double-curvature surface is further subdivided into synclastic and anti- clastic surfaces. The geometry of basic surfaces can be identified, according to the method of genera- tion, as surfaces of translation and surfaces of rotation (revolution); they are defined mathematically by an equation. Common surface forms as found in books on analytical geometry are the cone, the cylinder, the sphere, the hyperbolic paraboloid (hypar, h.p.), the elliptic paraboloid (elpar), and the conoid. These shapes are discussed in more detail in the following section. Other important geometrical identifications are the ruled surface and the developable surface. There is no limit set to the formal generation of surface systems; they are mostly made up of segments or of some combination of the basic surfaces. This aspect is treated later as part of the architectural context. In conclusion, one may organize the bent surfaces as generated from mathematical geometrical point of view as shown in Fig. 7.5. Besides the mathematical form generators for bent surface structures there are many other methods for finding shapes as derived from considerations of behavior and experi- ments, construction process, art, as well from analogs in nature and other fields. Be- havioral considerations of principal stress flow, and funicular and minimal surfaces are described in Fig. 7.4. Already Antonio Gaudi has experimented with the hanging re- versed membrane concept as a source of generating form. The behavior of the surface depends also on the nature of its physical composition. It can be flexible or rigid, it can be solid or ribbed, or it can be isotropic ot anisotropic (ee Fig. 9.1). The basic classification as used here and defined in Fig.7.4, is soft shells (tensile membranes), rigid thin shells, and vaults 7.4 THE MEMBRANE FORCES The Tensile Membrane Under Normal Pressure Flexible membranes respond to external force action in pure tension by adjusting their geometry, in a manner similar to single cable systems. The membrane’s force reaction to a pressure applied normal to its surface, is investigated here. The free body of a surface element is shown in Fig.7.6. The element is cut along the principal curvatures, so that only axial membrane forces (WV, and N,) resist the external load p. There are no tan- gential shear forces along the membrane ‘edges, because of the absence of skewed curva-i FS Twa \ ‘ im 7 / Susy ON “J i vonse-nom sv ToL INV 398, ee Ang MONS7.1. The Shell Structure in Nature 387 Fig. 7.1. Surfaces in nature. believable richness of surface forms as well as the strength of the bent surface structure. ‘The various spiral geometries of seashells, especially the beauty and perfectness of the nautilus, have always been inspiring. The dome-ike shape of the skull uses minimum material to achieve maximum strength so that the most vital organs can be protected. The bone itself, on a microscopic scale, consists of an intricate three-dimensional rigid lattice network that contains the soft tissue elements. Depending on the type of skull capsule, the number of layers ranges from one to multilayer systems similar to sand- wich construction.388 Introduction to Bent Surface Structures There are many types of tensile membranes in nature, The lightweight wings of insects and bats respond to the necessary flexibility and mobility; they can be described as folding soft shell structures. They may be reinforced with a delicate network of ribbing, as for the much publicized dragonfly, reminding us of the branching grid structures of leaves, Pneumatic forms are found in sea foam, soap bubbles, and organic flexible cells stabilized by fluids. The hydrostatic skeleton and the lack of stiff components, typical for some worms, clearly respond to flexibility. There are infinitely many types of spider webs ranging from two-dimensional to three- dimensional net structures; they may be the familiar, vertical, sheetlike radial webs, or suspended tentlike membranes. The radially stiffened membrane of Victoria, the giant water lily of the Amazon, has fascinated many architects. It probably started with Joseph Paxton who was intrigued by the beauty and strength of the branching rib pattern that supports the larger than 5 ft pad at the underside. Its structure influenced his design of the barrel vaulted iron/ slass structure of London’s Crystal Palace of 1851, which, in tum, had an extensive impact on subsequent architecture. 7.2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BENT SURFACE STRUCTURES The great dome structures of the past (Fig. 7.2), together witli the cylindrical barrel vaults, are the forerunners of the present day soft and rigid shells, keeping in mind that the modern, thin membranes, with their formal flexibility, are actually of completely different nature, Still, the study of various construction methods for dome structures throughout Western history will strengthen the understanding and appreciation of current technology. The structural design of the great domes of the past did not have a scientific origin. They were sized as based on empirical knowledge derived over time from material charuc- teristics, construction processes, corrections of failures, geometric symbolism, and so on, and were contained in design rules as described, for instance, by the Roman Vitruvius in the first century B.C., and later in the Renaissance by Leone Battista Alberti (1485). Gothic master masons equated structure with geometry, possibly reflecting some intuitive feeling for force flow, though it was never formulated. The Renaissance architects, on the other hand, were absorbed by the geometry of form in general; they tried to reflect the harmony of nature in architectural proportions through mathematics. Structural con- cerns as reflected by the revived interest in Roman engineering hardly had any influence on the form-giving process of architecture. However, during this period of humanism, scholars began to search for an order in the universe separate from religion, thereby developing the basis for the modern sciences. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) so clearly represented the ideals of this period; he had already recognized and defined several effects of theoretical mechanics, The evolution of structural mechanics started about 100 years later with Galileo Galilei and then progressed with the development of scientific thought through the Age of Reason, so that by the nineteenth century the basics of mechanics and elastic material behavior were clearly formulated. The necessary theory for the structural design of thin shells was then further developed at the beginning of this century. The earliest dome forms probably are derived from the corbelling principle, where“aumonns ueds-opim ayp Jo yuatHdojaAop aL “ [Sunlonals NVdS-30IM 3HL4O LN3aWd0O13A4G rye Windos WIDYH nossa 4m390 Introduction to Bent Surface Structures rings of horizontal masonry layers project slightly beyond the ring of the previous layer, usually yielding conical outlines. The most famous example in the Western hemisphere is the Treasury of Atreus in Mycenae (circa 1325 B.C.) Corbelled domes had not been used anymore in Europe for large scale enclosures, however in India the Islamic architecture continued to employ the principle, A sensa- tional example is the great dome of Gol Gumbaz at Bijapur in southern India (1625- 36 A.D.) which is 125 ft in diameter, thus larger than the Hagia Sofia. Astonishing is the fact that the dome uses much less thickness than the Pantheon to resist the tensile hoop forces. The immense span of Hadrian’s Pantheon in Rome (circa 123 A.p.) had been un- equaled until the second half of the nineteenth century. The reactions of the hemi- spherical concrete dome due to gravity are tangential to the support and hence do not cause a horizontal thrust component, as do shallow domes, However, the familiar thrust due to the geometry of semicircular arches and vaults must be balanced in dome vaults internally by tensile hoop forces along the lower dome portion, as will be discussed later in much more detail, These tensile circumferential forces are resisted by the massive dome thickness, which increases towards the base, as well as by stronger material. To keep these forces to a minimum, the weight of the concrete is successively reduced towards the crown by employing lighter weight aggregates and reducing the vault’s thickness, thereby also reflecting the magnitude of the force flow along the arches in the radial direction, The dome vault is further stiffened by eight relieving arches embedded in the concrete. The series of domes of Justinian’s Hagia Sofia in Constantinople, built by the master builders Anthemius of Tralles and Isodore of Miletus (537 .p.), cause a rather dynamic flow of solid building elements together with an interior spaciousness that is quite dif- ferent than the more static Pantheon. The shallow main brick dome is reinforced with ribs and is almost entirely in compression, if one considers it as a vault; thus, it evades the tensile stresses in semicircular domes and the necessary increase in shell thickness, which might not have been feasible because of the low tensile capacity of the brick and the lost art of the Roman concrete technology, The dome sits on four gigantic pendentives that convert the round base to the square space below. The pendentives, in turn, are vertically supported by four huge circular arches. The lateral thrust, which is large for shallow domes but not present for semicircular domes where it is transformed into circum- ferential tensile stress bands along the bottom part of the dome, is resisted by two semi- domes in one direction and by massive comer buttresses in the other direction. The action of these buttresses had not been fully understood by the architects and thus could not prevent several collapses of the roof. Only in the cathedrals of the Middle Ages was the art of buttressing developed to a high level of sophistication, About 1000 years later the Turkish architect Sinan abdur-Mennan (1489-1588), inspired by the Byzantine Hagia Sophia, transformed its architecture into the floating antigravity structures so typical for Ottoman mosques. In the Blue Mosque, he resisted the thrust of the dome by half-domes in both major directions, thus evading the support problem of the Hagia Sophia. Gothic cathedrals are admired for their seemingly weightless interior spaces which are not achieved through record horizontal spans, but by span-to-height proportions (e.g., cathedral at Reims: 123-ft height to vault, 48-ft width for central aisle) with Amiens and Cologne cathedrals reaching about 1:3 and finally Beauvais the daring proportion of 1:3.33, quite a development from the typical ratio of 1:2 for the Romanesque churches! These proportions together with the effects of light and articulation of the slender skeleton structure convey a feeling of antigravity and dematerialization of space, in tum,‘7.2, The Development of Bent Surface Structures 331 resulting in a never ending upward surge as is so powerfully and daringly expressed in the French cathedrals of the High Gothic period. The typical Gothic cross-vault is obtained by intersecting two pointed cylinders and by placing transverse ribs and diagonal ribs along the intersection lines (see Fig. 8.13). The ribs act together with the stone webbing as a composite vault. In the late Gothic period the solid pointed vault is replaced by an intricate network of ribs, The vaults ate supported vertically by interior piers, while their thrust and the thrust caused by the steep timber roof is usually transferred by two separate flying buttresses to the exterior massive vertical piers. These huge pier-buttresses are topped by pinnacles which can be visualized as a prestress agent adding weight, so that the resultant force due to thrust and weight is kept within the middle third of the horizontal pier cross-section so that no tension is generated, The high point and limit of the Gothic construction method was reached by Beauvais Cathedral (1347) with an incredible vault height of 158 ft. The dome of S. Maria del Fiore in Florence (1434) can be considered the first modern dome structure and an important guideline for future domes. Visualize that it took nearly 900 years for a dome of the scale of the Hagia Sophia to be built. The geometry of the octagonal pointed dome is generated from the intersection of four circular cylinders. The primary supporting sandstone arches are placed along the four ridges, but in addition two intermediate secondary ribs are located in each of the cylindrical sectors. These radial ribs, together with horizontal circumferential stone rings, tie the inner and outer masonry shells of this double-layer dome together. In contrast to the previous domes which show predominantly vault (surface) action, here the radial steep arches can be assumed to be the primary structural components, they are not just the ribbing of a double vault. The arches cause lateral thrust even if their curvature is tangential to the supports; this thrust is further increased due to the weight of the heavy lantern but on the other hand reduced through the large dome height. Here the hoop tension is not resisted by the stronger and thicker vault portion along the lower part of the dome as for the comparatively flat Pantheon, nor by the buttressing as for the Hagia Sophia, but by hidden tension rings which consist of several layers of stone chains (sandstone blocks joined by iron clamps) and a timber chain. Fillippo Brunelleschi, the inventive designer of this polygonal dome, developed the method of composite action between ring and arches as well as the idea of double vault construction, which can be traced back to the thirteenth century Byzantine domes of St. Mark’s in Venice; these domes employ outer timber framing. In addition, Brunelleschi’s real invention lies in the erection of the dome. He did not use any central temporary shoring to support the dome, but employed the horizontal sandstone rings to prevent the arches from tilting inward during the construction. Michelangelo’s dome for St. Peter in Rome (1590), with nearly the same span, is based on similar construction principles, though its double brick vault is thinner, no horizontal circumferential stone rings are used, and less radial ribs are employed. Further, the entire dome thrust was resisted first by only three iron chains along the base, which proved to be insufficient so that five more tension rings had to be installed in 1743 A revival of the idea of High Gothic ribbed vaulting is seen in Guarini’s 8. Lorenzo in Turin (1666-1687). Here, the solid domical surface is ingeniously resolved into eight intersecting arches, forming a starlike pattern in plan view. Christopher Wren used a conical brick dome of only 18 in. thickness that is tied together at its base by a double iron chain to support the cupola of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (1710). This load-bearing dome is not visible, it is located between the inner, self-supporting brick dome and the hemispherical outer truss-like timber structure which is partly carried by the conical shell, The shape of the cone, only slightly curved along its392 Introduction to Bent Surface Structures inclined portions, comes very close to the funicular form responding to the single load due to the heavy 700 ton masonry lantern and the uniform roof loading, thus causing mainly compression and allowing this extremely light structure, the first of its kind, to be built. The dome of the Church of the Invalides in Paris (1680-1691), built by Jules Hardouin-Mansart at about the same time, is constructed quite differently. It consists of an outer load-bearing, complex, trussed, timber framework and a self-supporting inner, elliptical brick dome which splits at about midheight into two vaults, Jacques Germain Soufflot followed St. Paul’s concept for the Pantheon in Paris (1755~ 1792) but replaced the trussed outer skin with a third masonry vault. His building marks the high point and the end of masonry vaulting. Now iron skeleton structures slowly start. to gain in importance. First iron and then steel were the materials for the large span structures of the nine- teenth century. Thomas U. Walther’s dome for the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. (1864) can be seen as a typical example of the new material iron, The main struc- tural elements for the ribbed dome are the inner trussed elliptical arches of nearly uniform depth. They support the crescent-shaped trusses on top, with the upper chords defining the elliptical profile of the cupola, and also carry the inner hemispherical plaster dome. Johann W. A. Schwedler is credited as one of the first designers to have introduced true shell grid structures, He replaced the traditional ribbed dome with the braced dome concept. His largest steel dome was built in Vienna (1874) and spans 210 ft. The cylindrical building of the Galerie des Machines for the 1889 Paris Exhibition reached an unprecedented and unheard span of 375 ft by employing parallel three-hinged, trussed gable frames made of steel. ‘The Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi, in the late nineteenth century, introduced important new concepts of design. He was fully absorbed in the relationship of form and structure. He searched for efficient structural shapes which exerted a minimum of bend- ing and lateral thrust; he studied the intricacy of force and form from an experimental and empirical point of view. For instance, for the Colonia Guell Chapel (1898-1914) near Barcelona, he derived the funicular shape of the vaults and their inclined piers from a suspended string/sheet scale model with the proper weights hanging on it, to simulate the inverted rigid structure fully loaded, He may be considered the unacknowledged forerunner of modem shell construction; he employed the traditional Catalan thin-tile vaulting for the unusually complex curved surfaces that he developed. Though not widely recognized, Gaudi may be the first ever to have used hyperbolic paraboloids in building construction, The tradition of the ribbed masonry domes was revived at the beginning of the twentieth century with reinforced concrete, obviously stimulated by the skeleton steel construction. It was much easier for the reinforced cast-in-place concrete, than for the masonry, to resist the critical hoop tension along the bottom portion of a steep dome. ‘The most impressive concrete dome is the Centennial Hall in Wroclaw, Poland (formerly Breslau, Germany) designed by Max Berg (1912). The reinforced conerete skeletal dome has a span of 213 ft and thus was the first concrete dome to surpass the span of the Pantheon in Rome. Since the weight of concrete domes, which are based on traditional rib construction, increases rapidly with span, it was just a question of time for thin conerete shells to develop. In 1916, Eugene Freyssinet began to build the two famous concrete airship hangars of parabolic cylindrical shape at Orly near Paris. These arched, 18-ft deep, undulating thin shell vaults had a span of 262 ft and were 184 ft high with a maximum shell thickness of7.2 The Development of Bent Surface Structures 393 only 34 in., thus yielding a very light structure. However, these arched vaults do not have 4 true shell form; the arch moment due to wind are just efficiently resisted by the depth of the folds thus allowing the thin concrete corrugations. The first true concrete shell is the hemispherical, ribless, 53 ft dome of the Planetarium for the Zeiss Company in Jena, Germany (1922). It introduced the new era of rigid, thin shell structures and stimulated at first engineers, and then architects to become fully involved with the formal potential and the challenge of the bent surface. Torroja’s famous shallow dome for the Algeciras Market was built in 1933 and the cantilevering hyperbolic paraboloids for the Zarzuela Hippodrome in 1935. The first long-span shell structure in the United States are the short cylindrical shells for the Sports Arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania, designed by Anton Tedesco of Roberts & Schaefer Company in 1936. The development of shells was briefly interrupted during World War Il, but then the 1950s reflected an explosion of concrete shell architecture as will be discussed later. The skeletal shell continued the growth which Schwedler started. It was experimented with, in many new framing geometries, to increase the strength and stiffness of the sur- face while reducing its weight, as well as to keep member length variations to a minimum. Important historical turning points are the 384-ft stressed-skin, space grid, geodesic steel dome for the Union Tank Car Company in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, designed by Buck- minster Fuller in 1958, as well as the lamella roof for the 642-ft Houston Astrodome (1964). In the 1950s designers also started to experiment with tensile membranes, or soft shells. Prestressed cable network surfaces have the advantage that they can be built with prefabricated components and do not require much scaffolding. The Raleigh Arena, which opened in 1953, is regarded as the first important moder tensile roof structure. At about the same time, Frei Otto started his experiments in tent structures, reaching a formal as well as technical climax in the enclosures for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In the 1970s, the further development of pneumatic structures was very much encouraged by the U.S. Pavilion at Expo 1970 in Osaka. The change from the traditional dome structures of the past through the transition period of the second half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, and then to the present day bent surface structure with its limitless formal potential, is enor- mous, as will be shown in the following portions of this work From a technical point of view, span does not impose limits anymore upon architec- ture, at least not in the traditional sense; 350-ft spans are quite common today. Buck- minster Fuller even proposed to cover Manhattan with a geodesic dome to produce a controlled climate. Differences between the heavy, traditional domes and the modern thin shells of stronger materials and more efficient stress distributions, as expressed in span and weight, become apparent from Table 7.1. The weight of the flat concrete shell for the Schott Co. (Fig. 7.2) has nearly the same span as St. Peter's but only about 2% of its weight. Some of the domes built later are much lighter in weight proportionally, though they have much larger spans. A pneumatic structure may be considered weight- less; however, the rigidity of the soft shell must be provided by another energy source. Notice the span-to-thickness ratio of a hen’s egg is five times larger than for St. Paul's, but only 10% as efficient as the shell for the CNIT Exhibition Hall! Remember, the span-to-depth ratios for beams are roughly in the range 20-24, that means about 20 times smaller than for concrete shells, indicating the material efficiency of the membrane system as compared to the flexural system ignoring other considerations of structural design such as the effect of scale.394 Introduction to Bent Surface Structures Table 7.1 DATE NAME SPAN APPROX. AVER. SPAN APPROX. PER (£t) THICKNESS THICK WEIGHT CENT (ft) (ps) —— 123. Pantheon, Rome 143 13 nD (concrete dome) 1434S. Maria del Piore, Florence 138 3, 20 (double shell masonry dome) 1590 St. Peter's, Rome 137 1389 100 (@ouble shell brick dome) 1710 st. Paul's, London 109 3 36 (brick cone supporting outer and inner shells) 1924 Schott Co., Jena, DDR 131 0.2 65 0 2.23 (reinforced concrete she11) 1958 CNIT Exhibition Hall, Paris 720 O.4 ze00 584.18 (zeinf. conc. double shell) 1969 Cony. Center, Ohio U., Athens, 328 9 0.65 Ohio (steel Schwedler dome) 1973 Louisiana Superdome, New 680 26 (1.87 Orleans (steel lamella dome) 1975 King County Stad., Seattle 661 0.6 110285612 (reinf. cone., 5 in. shell between 6ft deep radial arches) 1977 Stadium North. Arizona U. 502 aasless Plagstaff (triang. grid timber dome) 1975 Pontiac Stadium, Pontiac, MI 722 2 9.07 (pneumatic dome) Hen's egg 0.13 0.001 180 The comparisons above are based purely on technical and not aesthetic considerations. ‘The values of scale and engineering achievement as represented by the Houston Astro- dome, for example, may not at all be superior to the spatial qualities of the dome archi- tecture of the past! Further, bent surface structures should not be associated only with engineering technology and efficient long spans but should evolve as an integral part of the entire architecture. 7.3. SURFACE CLASSIFICATION To predict the behavior of a membrane structure as well as to be able to construct it, not only must its geometry be known, but also the physical nature of the surface and other behavioral characteristics. These three basic considerations are defined in Figs. 7.3