Centre Georges Pompidou

Architects Rogers and Piano and structuralist Peter Rice designed the Pompidou Center, which used a large number of parallel-chord truss structures, giving the trusses new vitality.

Except for the 28 outer columns, there is no column inside the entire building, and the floor is completely borne by trusses and Geer cantilever beams. The Geer cantilever beam is like a seesaw with a rotating shaft on the column. The short end supports the truss girder of the main span and bears the shear force transmitted by the truss; the other end is tightly pulled by a tie rod fixed at the bottom of the building.

Because the ends of the truss beams are hinged, the column cross-section is reduced, and the outer columns are replaced by tie rods, which minimizes visual interference. In addition to the structural innovation, the Pompidou Center is most praised for its delicate node design.

Hollow truss

The open-web truss proposed by Belgian engineer Arthur Vierendeel at the end of the 19th century is a lattice-like structure composed of vertical webs and chords with parallel chord truss removed from oblique webs.

The straight web members of the open-web truss bear greater shear and bending moments. The overall efficiency of the truss is not as good as that of the ordinary truss, but the shape is more concise and clear, and it has unique applicability in architectural functions.

The Rare Book Library of Yale University uses a multi-layer hollow truss. The upper five floors of the building constitute a hollow truss supported by four-corner pillar piers, and the first floor of the building is all overhead.

The exterior of the building is inlaid with 30mm marble slabs, which can block the ultraviolet rays in the natural light, which not only provides soft light for the interior of the building, but also does not damage the collection materials.

The stand canopy of the Wolfsburg Motor City Theme Park looks like a solid cantilever from the outside. In fact, it is a hollow truss structure with an overall cantilever of 25 meters.

It may be because the height of the truss is small, the hollow form with openings is easier to implement, and the building has a beautiful shape. The skin is stainless steel, the thickness is 10mm-30mm, the roof is 1400 square meters, and the stainless steel is 425t.

Space truss

Early trusses appeared in plane form, and engineers generally solved the problem of stability outside the plane by arranging horizontal supports. Then the space trusses appeared, the components were arranged in three dimensions, and the cross section was often triangular or rectangular, which greatly improved the overall stability of the truss, and was suitable for modern large-span spatial structures.

San Francisco International Airport is well received as a model of the perfect combination of architecture and structure. The main roof is composed of five continuous three-span fish belly space trusses. The span of the middle part of the continuous truss is 116 meters, the two ends cantilevered 49 meters, and the total length is 262 meters. Utilizing the space truss shape, it doubles as a daylighting skylight.

The cross section of the truss is triangular. The maximum height of the truss is 8.2 meters and the width is 10.7 meters. It is composed of steel pipes with a diameter of 305 to 508 mm, and intersecting welded joints are used between the rods. The fish-bellied space truss is hinged end to end, and the balanced cantilever trusses at both ends are planar structures.

Each continuous truss structure is supported by 4 columns, and the shape of the truss is basically similar to the bending moment diagram of the structure under uniform load. The fulcrum of the inverted triangle spatial fish-belly truss in the middle of the span corresponds to the zero point of the structural bending moment diagram, and its shape is consistent with the shape of the bending moment diagram.

Kansai Airport Terminal

Kansai Airport's architectural design conceptually pursues a continuous spatial experience. The architecture presents a flowing form. In the structure, a space truss with a large span of 82.8 meters is adopted.