Constructions of innovative geodesic domes in terms of the sustainable and efficient cross-sections using

Abstract

Abstract Geodesic domes are structures which deliver effective solutions, associated with cost savings, due to the lack of intermediate supports when roofing large-sized objects. The multitude of advantages of this type of construction was translated into the shaping of innovative lightweight objects of geodesic domes, constructed on a regular octahedron. In this article, the use of strut sections was applied to covers generated due to a regular octahedron. Two families of domes were compared, resulting from the use of two methods that differ from each other in their topology. Each family consist of 8 structures thus finally 16 geodesic domes were considered. The generated domes were compared in terms of the same section for all strut elements, and the optimized section for each group of struts. To find the design focused on obtaining optimal solution, a number of comparative analysis were carried out. The presented analysis is extremely important in the context of environmental impact, because it shows the steel consumption and the sense of optimization. It was indicated that by optimizing the cross-sections of the strut elements, the steel consumption, as well as their weight, decreased by approx. 10–25% for dome structures which were created using method 1 and 20–40% for domes generated using method 2. The article aims to provide suggestion on the selection of the appropriate innovative geodesic dome mesh. A mesh based on various methods of shaping the covers of geodesic domes created using a regular octahedron.

Keywords

• Geodesic dome
• Lightweight structure
• Cross-section
• Efficiency
• Steel spatial structures