The roof and walls of the Beijing Olympic National Swimming Centre have a polyhedron space frame format developed from foam theory; the first and largest application of its kind in the world. Some key techniques of structural design are described in this paper, including development of the geometrical form; optimisation of the space frame structure; analysis of various loading conditions; whole structure oriented analysis; pushover and shutdown analyses and elastic-plastic time-history analysis under seismic loading. Test studies of the joints and submodel structures are introduced.
Xueyi Fu, CSCEC National Swimming Center Design Consortium, Beijing, China
Lei Gu, CSCEC National Swimming Center Design Consortium, Beijing, China
Xianqiao Yang, CSCEC National Swimming Center Design Consortium, Beijing, China
Weijiang Yu, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Xianchuan Chen, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China