Force-Finding of Large-Scale Cable Net Glass Curtain Structures Using Inherent Symmetry and Nonlinear Structural Stiffness

A force-finding analysis is crucial for a single-layer cable net glass curtain structure. In engineering applications, the boundary for such a cable net glass curtain structure exhibits limited rigidity, which frequently causes prestress loss and differential changes in the reaction force of the supports at both ends during the construction process. Here, we propose a nonlinear force-finding method based on the inherent symmetry and nonlinear structural stiffness of these large-scale cable net curtain wall structures. Our method utilizes undirected subgraphs to preprocess and analyze the cable net curtain structures. The subgraphs and their graph products are introduced to effectively compute the overall configuration of the cable net structure. According to the preprocessing results and the boundary conditions of the cable net structure, a nonlinear force-finding method based on the stiffness of the overall structure is presented. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed method could be verified by combining it with actual engineering applications. It took approximately 12 min for a large-scale cable net structure with more than 2000 nodes and members. The obtained prestresses agreed well with the target forces, whereas the computation accuracy was less than 5%. This method provides an important reference for further engineering applications of these cable net glass curtain structures.