Novel design methodologies for transfeormable doubly-ruled surface structures

Abstract

Today architecture seeks for adaptable spaces ever than before to meet the changing functional, spatial or environmental needs. Thus, it necessitates developing adaptive structures that are capable of geometric transformations. For this purpose, a series of kinetic structures has been developed. The most impressive examples of these structures are deployable and transformable bar structures that have the ability to change their shapes from one configuration to another. Although many innovative designs have been proposed for these structures, only a few have been constructed at full-scale due to their complex mechanical systems and limited configurations in which they can carry loads. Moreover, most of the proposed structures are restricted to certain geometric forms such as singly-curved vaults or doubly-curved synclastic domes. Doubly-curved anticlastic structures have been rarely used despite their resistance to loads through their curvatures and ease of constructing their surfaces by ruled surface generation method. The primary objective of this dissertation is to propose novel methodologies to design deployable and transformable doubly-ruled surface structures by using novel structural mechanisms (SMs) which provide morphologically flexible, mechanically simple, structurally effective and architecturally viable solutions. For this purpose, a systematic procedure is developed which comprises geometric design, structural synthesis and structural design phases. First, the geometric properties of the doubly-ruled surfaces are thoroughly analyzed and their morphologies are investigated based on the generated parametric models. Second, novel SMs are constructed by means of structural synthesis in which transformation capabilities of the proposed SMs are discussed in detail. Finally, several case studies are proposed for the architectural applications of those SMs and a set of structural analyses is carried out at different configurations of the proposed structures to discuss their structural behavior under typical loading patterns. “Simulation and modeling” has been used as the main research method in the study which covers all mathematical models and computer simulations.