Sanya Convention and Exhibition Center Membrane Structure

The Sanya Beauty Crown Cultural Convention and Exhibition Center was the venue for the 53rd Miss World final held in Sanya, China in December 2003. Its building area is about 13,000 square meters, the plane is similar to an ellipse, the diameter of the long axis is 106m, the diameter of the short axis is 92m, and the total height of the building is 36m. Its roof is a closed skeleton cable-membrane structure, the lower part of the roof is composed of steel structure and concrete structure, and the supporting point of the roof is set on the lower steel structure. It is the closed membrane structure building with the largest span in my country.

The cable membrane of the roof can be divided into three parts: the suspension cable membrane structure below 30m, the crown membrane structure above 30m, and the suspension membrane that divides the internal and external space. The suspension cable membrane structure below 30m is composed of two parts: the upper membrane and the lower membrane, and the FE1302T2 membrane material is used. The upper membrane adopts a cable support structure, the notochord and the main steel structure are connected by a herringbone strut, and the upper membrane is suspended above the steel structure through a notochord and connection, which fully reflects the lightness of the membrane. The lower membrane is located below the upper membrane between the column axis and the outermost end point of the truss girder, and is fixed to the common side cable simultaneously with the upper membrane.

Sanya is located in the southernmost part of China, there is no snow load, but there are frequent torrential rains. When designing the membrane structure, the drainage safety of the membrane roof must be ensured, otherwise the rainwater will continue to flow to the place after the accumulation of water, which will cause the increase of the membrane surface stress at that place, and eventually exceed the tensile strength of the membrane and cause the membrane face cracked. A notable feature of the project is that there are two upper and lower membrane surfaces, and the lower membrane plays a very important role in drainage. Because the tension direction of the lower membrane has a downward component, the upper membrane surface has a certain slope at the lower part with the largest span, which is beneficial to the overall drainage. If there is no lower film surface, it will be difficult to achieve the predetermined shape of the upper film surface. In the design, a downward load of 0.10kN/㎡ was taken to confirm the drainage safety of the membrane roof. The calculation results proved that the membrane roof system can have a certain slope to ensure the safety of the entire structure under heavy rain.

The cable-membrane structure is a novel structural system, and designers can give full play to their imagination and create various beautiful shapes. In the structural analysis, because the cable-membrane structure is a flexible system, the deformation of the membrane material is large, and with the deformation of the membrane material, the distribution and direction of the load will change. The cable-membrane structure must be analyzed as a whole by the nonlinear finite element method. Different structural forms need to use different analysis methods and make correct nodes.