Rigid-Membrane Method for Determining Stress Distribution of Membrane Structure Based on Laser Scanner System

The determination of stress distribution is important for the safe use of membrane structures in practical engineering,which is difficult to be obtained by existing measurement methods and analysis methods.This paper proposes a rigid-membrane method to determine the stress distribution of the membrane,which expands the stiffness of the membrane,applies the load of the membrane in equilibrium to the membrane shape of the equilibrium state,and performs nonlinear finite element analysis.The rigid-membrane method inversely acquires the stress distribution of the membrane based only on the shape and load distribution in equilibrium obtained from the numerical simulation of a membrane structure under water loads,and determines the modulus magnitude and mesh size required to rigidize the membrane.The accuracy of the rigid-membrane method is verified by the small differences between the stress distributions obtained from the proposed method and numerical simulations.The equilibrium membrane shape in the actual project can be scanned and reconstructed by the laser scanner system without any pre-processing,and the load is determined by the water level,internal pressure,etc.Based on the actual membrane shape and water load distribution,the rigid-membrane method determines the real stress distribution of the membrane in the test of flat membrane subjected to ponding water,which verifies that the rigid-membrane method is a practical method to determine the stress distribution only by the membrane shape and external load distribution.