Toward Extremely Lightweight Prestressed Structure

By introducing prestress into slender stiff elements such as cables, slender members can carry compression force. In prestressed structure, thick main compressive members carry the reaction forces, and they are therefore dominant in the weight of the structure. In this paper, the authors focus on the compressive stiffness of slender members and propose to replace the thick members by zero weight material, air. This enables them to propose extremely lightweight structures. When the structure is made of such prestressed members with compressed air, the structure is called a “pneumatically prestressed structure” (PPS). PPS have many advantages, but their mechanical properties have not been investigated in detail yet. The authors regarded the simple configuration of PPS as a basic unit and investigated the mechanical behavior of the unit such as structural stiffness, load capacity and stability. Moreover, the behavior of the arch made of the basic unit was also investigated through the comparison between the experimental result and numerical calculation considering the material non-linearity and cable slide.