Transient Behavior of CFRP Tensegrity System in a Suspen-dome

In order to establish a conclusive result for the application of carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) cable as a tensegritysystem for a suspen dome, the structural integrity assessment of the system, subjected to transient load, must be considered.This paper gives a preliminary assessment of the dynamic behavior of carbon fibre reinforced polymer cable in a suspendome in comparison with that of the steel counterpart, using a small model of 4 m span and 0.4 m rise. A commercial finiteelement software namely ANSYS was used for the structure simulation in respect of the experimental design. The resultsfrom the simulation show that the carbon fibre reinforced polymer cable gives a reliable assessment as the steel counterpart.The natural frequencies of CFRP cables are higher than those of steel cables due to the CFRP cables’ high stiffness-toweightratio and less curvature under gravity loads. CFRP cables influence the structure with good stiffness which providesgood vibration resistance. The results also indicate that from a technical point of view, carbon fibre reinforced polymercables can perform better than steel cables as tensegrity system for a suspen dome. It is concluded that CFRP cables canbe applied to replace steel ones as tensegrity system for a suspen dome.

Keywords:

Suspen dome , CFRP Tensegrity System , Steel Tensegrity System , Modal Analysis , Transient Analysis