Design of prestressed gridshells as smooth poly-hypar surface
structures

Ting Cao a,*, Pierluigi D’Acunto a, Juan Jos´e Castello´n b, TelliniAlessandro Tellini a, Joseph Schwartz a, Hong Zhang c
a ETH Zurich, Stefano- Franscini-Platz 5, 8049 Zürich, Switzerland
b Rice University, 6100 Main St, Houston, TX 77005, USA
c Southeast University, Sipailou 2#, Xuanwu district, Nanjing, 211189, China

This article by Ting Cao, Pierluigi D’Acunto, Juan Jose Castellon, TelliniAlessandro Tellini, Joseph Schwartz and Hong Zhang, demonstrates the design potentials of a recently developed approach for generating smooth poly-hypar surfaces, freeform surfaces made of combinations of hyperbolic paraboloids (hypars).

In a smooth poly-hypar surface, the double curvature of the individual hypar modules and the smooth connections between them ensure global bending-free structural behaviour. In this article, the structural analysis of a prestressed gridshell as a smooth poly-hypar surface is introduced.

Graphic statics is used to evaluate and control the distribution of internal forces within the structure. Moreover, a case study, the Hypar Pavilion, is presented as a prestressed gridshell as a smooth poly-hypar surface structure.

The Hypar Pavilion was prefabricated using lightweight materials and low-tech manufacturing techniques. The entire gridshell was manually built out of forty individual hypars, which were combined following a specific sequence to ensure the kinematic stability of the ongoing construction without scaffolding.