A tensegrity structure for a solar stadium roof with sun-tracking capability

IF 5.7 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, CIVIL Thin-Walled Structures Pub Date : 2025-02-11 DOI:10.1016/j.tws.2025.113033

Rana Nazifi Charandabi , Enrico Babilio , Gerardo Carpentieri , Giovanni Spagnuolo , Ada Amendola , Fernando Fraternali

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This work presents a tensegrity design approach for a small-to-medium-sized sports stadium, equipped with sun-tracking solar modules on its roof. A novel V-Expander unit is used to create a modular roof structure, with members optimized using a minimal mass strategy. The stability of the entire stadium structure and the deflections of the cantilever roof are analyzed under vertical, seismic, and wind loads through detailed finite element analysis. Electrical power production is estimated over one year for the Salerno area. The results demonstrate that the tensegrity solar roof exhibits limited deflections and remarkable solar energy harvesting capabilities, utilizing sun-tracking strategies tailored to different sectors of the grandstands. This research paves the way for the design of multi-scale sports stadiums featuring sustainable, adaptive lightweight tensegrity structures. These systems employ sun-tracking photovoltaic modules that can be tilted by simply wrapping a bus cable around a winch.

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来源期刊

Thin-Walled Structures 工程技术-工程：土木

CiteScore

9.60

自引率

20.30%

发文量

801

审稿时长

66 days

期刊介绍： Thin-walled structures comprises an important and growing proportion of engineering construction with areas of application becoming increasingly diverse, ranging from aircraft, bridges, ships and oil rigs to storage vessels, industrial buildings and warehouses. Many factors, including cost and weight economy, new materials and processes and the growth of powerful methods of analysis have contributed to this growth, and led to the need for a journal which concentrates specifically on structures in which problems arise due to the thinness of the walls. This field includes cold– formed sections, plate and shell structures, reinforced plastics structures and aluminium structures, and is of importance in many branches of engineering. The primary criterion for consideration of papers in Thin–Walled Structures is that they must be concerned with thin–walled structures or the basic problems inherent in thin–walled structures. Provided this criterion is satisfied no restriction is placed on the type of construction, material or field of application. Papers on theory, experiment, design, etc., are published and it is expected that many papers will contain aspects of all three.