Concrete shells – towards efficient structures: construction of an ellipsoidal concrete shell in Switzerland

Abstract

Concrete shells have been widely used in the past as economical and suitable solutions for a number of structures such as roofs, silos, cooling towers and offshore platforms. Taking advantage of their single or double curvature, bending moments and shear forces are limited, and the structures develop mostly membrane (in‐plane) forces, allowing them to span large distances with limited thicknesses (typically just a few centimetres). In recent decades, advances in numerical modelling, formwork erection and concrete technology have opened up a new set of possibilities for the use of concrete shells. This paper describes the design and construction of a shell in the form of an ellipsoid (93 × 52 × 22 m) and with thickness varying between 100 and 120 mm. The shell was built using sprayed concrete and also ordinary concrete in some regions. A number of tailored solutions were also adopted, such as post‐tensioning, addition of fibres and shear studs, to ensure satisfactory performance at both the serviceability and ultimate limit states.

Aktives Verformen von ausgehärteten Betonelementen zur Herstellung von räumlich gekrümmten Betonflächen

“…Demgegenüber stehen ein hoher Energieaufwand für die Produktion sowie ein hoher Materialaufwand für die Schalung. Beispiele für Bauwerke, die mit dieser Herangehensweise hergestellt wurden, sind eine Betonschale zur Überdachung eines Einkaufszentrums in Chiasso in der Schweiz , das Tragwerk des Mercedes Benz Museums in Stuttgart oder die Dachkonstruk tion des Hans‐Otto Theaters in Potsdam .…”

Efficient construction of concrete shells by Pneumatic Forming of Hardened Concrete: Construction of a concrete shell bridge in Austria by inflation

“…A great example of a concrete shell is the structure built in Chiasso, Switzerland using wooden formwork produced by use of computer numerical controlled production technologies. 1 A construction option for rotationally symmetric structures is to design formwork elements using ring tension or compression forces which transfer the loads of the fresh concrete to the foundations, considerably reducing the amount of required formwork. 2 Furthermore several pneumatic formwork systems have been developed and tested in the past decades.…”

Pneumatic forming of hardened concrete – building shells in the 21st century

“…State-of-theart design software and industrial engineering methods save costs and provide the technologies for building shells in an economic way. One example of an impressive posttensioned shell structure measuring 93 × 52 m was built in Chiasso, Switzerland [7]. The formwork, shown in Fig …”