Analysis of pneumatic shells with or without cable net; general finite-element formulation

Abstract Utilising a curved quadrilateral element system derived from surface patching technique, a general finite element formulation is done to analyse the non-linear behaviour of cable-reinforced air supported shells taking consideration also of the action of the membrane. This formulation, though presently restricted to isotropic and linearly elastic materials, is valid for any arbitrary geometry and boundary of inflatable shells with or without prestressing of the cable nets. An incremental precedure is used to approximate the non-linear solution. Test of convergency is carried out on a hemispherical shell with internal pressure, whose exact solution is well known. Among the other sample problems analysed are pressurized hemisphere under wind load and a hyperbolic paraboloid prestressed cable net with distributed as well as concentrated loads. Comparison with earlier known solutions of these problems establishes the validity of the method.