Study On Sliding Cable Element And Its Application

With the development of engineering technology and material, prestress cable stuctures are more and more used in long span civil engineering structures, for example gymnasium station, meeting hall, exhibition center, show hall and etc.Sliding cable element is created and developed in the above engineering background. The sliding cable element which is described and used in this paper is developed on the base of finite element method and nonlinear solid mechanics. The element which contains sliding nodes can simulate the cables with consistent stress. And the cables are not necessarily in the same line.The concept of structure design called load relieving system is created by English scholars in 1980s. This paper analyses load relieving system with sliding cable element. An example model of typical load relieving system is analyzed and a satisfactory result is get which partly proves the sliding cable element is correct and effective.A finite element model is created which have great reference to the suspendome structure of the gymnasium of Olympic badminton game in 2008. Static analysis and dynamic analysis are made with both disconnected hoop cable element and continuous hoop cable cable element.The two models with different cable elements perform exactly the same in prestress analysis, load analysis, nonlinear buckling analysis and time-history analysis. The buckling happens firstly at the top part of the dome. The most dangerous part of the structure is the ragged edge radial members and cables.Different results are acquaired when eigenvalue buckling analysis and modal analysis are performed. Buckling shape, buckling eigenvalue, natural frequency and modal shape of two models are all different. The model with disconnect hoop cable element has more various buckling shapes and modal shapes, while the model with continuous hoop cable element seems to be more likely to buckle and vibrate at outer members. The buckling eigenvalue of the model with disconnect hoop cable element is higher than that of the model with continuous hoop cable element, and so is the natural frequency. It shows that the model with disconnect hoop cable element is harder to buckle than the other model and has more stiffness too. From above, it shows that the application of sliding cable element in the load relieving system and suspendome system is effective. The rightness of sliding cable element is proved by getting the same result with disconnect cable element and the individual character is also exhibited by different performance in eigenvalue buckling analysis and modal analysis at the same time.