A hyperbolic paraboloid roof shell section made in prefabricated portions each of which has a joining edge parallel to the joining edge of another prefabricated portion and is adapted to extend between two beams of the roof frame. The joining edges of the adjacent portions have fastener means adjacent to the joining edges which provide tensile and shear strength.
A hyperbolic paraboloid roof structure which has in combination rectilinear panels (10) tangentially attached to a frame of beams (11) each of whose top surfaces (11a) is a semicircular arc or segment thereof. The panels are assembled from prefabricated rectilinear subpanels (13).
A dome structure is formed of a large number of identical arcuate segments secured together at the edges, with no additional visible structural members between base ends and apex ends of the segments. A reinforcing ring may be secured to the dome structure at the base ends of the segments, and another may be secured at the apex ends, if the apex or top end of the dome has an opening. In preferred embodiments the arcuate segments are formed of laminated wood, with a spline or other type of overlapped glued connection between adjacent segments. At the edges of the segments, angularity varies from virtually perpendicular at the apex end to a maximum deviation from perpendicular at the base ends, and this is addressed by a special method of shaping the segment edges.
A roof structure is composed of a plurality of prefabricated formed metal saddle elements which have four sides and which are bent along a diagonal between nonadjacent corners to define two triangular portions having corners opposite the bend line and lying in planes inclined to each other. The roof also includes half saddles similar to one triangular portion of a full saddle. The saddles and half saddles are connected to define plural pyramids having four sides and quadrilateral bases. A basal corner of a pyramid is connected to the basal corners of no more than three other pyramids. Depending upon the nature and location of supports for the roof, struts may be connected between some but not all of the pyramids adjacent their apices; in some instances, no struts are required.
Triangulated shells can be free-formed but are uneconomical compared to translational shells that can only be flat. Scale-trans shells are limited in terms of number and arrangement of the openings. The present invention provides a free-formed, custom-tailored shell surface and a regularly shaped, mass-produced shell surface that can be assembled fairly evenly from advantageously quadrangular mesh elements having coplanar node points. The flexibility of a triangle net of shell pieces in a large scale is combined with the evenness of a quad net for meshes in a small scale, whereby triangular meshes at the shared side of adjoining square nets are combined in pairs to give irregular quadrangular meshes having coplanar vertices. The inventive shell is especially suitable for use as an energy-saving building such as a weekend home, emergency shelter, cupola of an observatory, roof of a building or an inner courtyard, as the shell of a large multi-story building or as a sports hall or factory building. It is also suitable as a part of a vault, and as a complex shell consisting of a single continuous surface for exhibition or station buildings. Parts of a Bohemian dome, cushion-roof, Isler shell or blob can be combined within any individual shell.
A device for joining a panel and another structure. The device (10) includes a plurality of mounts (16) evenly distributed along the interface (I) between the panel (12) and the structure (14). Each mount (16) comprises a tension screw approximately perpendicular to the interface (I) and a nut embedded in the panel (12), close to the latter. To allow the transmission of more significant forces, the nuts are arranged in at least two different rows (R1, R2, R3), parallel to the interface (I). Moreover, the nuts of the adjacent mounts are located in different rows.
