RESEARCH ON LOAD-BEARING PROPERTY AND DESIGN OF CABLE DOMES

The cable dome, proposed by Geiger after developing Fuller's idea of tensegrity and improved by Levy, is a new type of large span space structures. In this paper, formulations of the initial forces distribution in members of two main systems of cable dome, which are Geiger dome and Levy dome, are presented. By analyzing the static performance of Levy dome and the variation of internal forces in members of the structure, four groups of design parameters in cable dome structure are represented in terms of: (1) the numbers of rings and the spaces between the rings; (2) the slopes of ridge cables; (3) the lengths of struts; (4) the initial force in one member of the structure.