Advanced Construction Technology

By Professor Chris Gorse & Ian Dickinson – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution – Non-Commercial – Share Alike License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/

Eden Project: Steel Space Frame

Chris Gorse and Ian Dickinson

These slides should be read in conjunction with Emmitt, S. and Gorse, C. (2010) Barry’s Advanced Construction

of Buildings. Oxford, Blackwell Publishing

Dome space frame

Hexagon space frame

Eden project

• The hexagonal space frame

• The transparent hexagonal membranes of the biomes are made of a special thin material called EFTE (ethyene tetra fluoro ethylene co-polymer foil)

• 200m long, 100m wide 50m high (largest dome 65m radius)

Space frame – The Eden Project• The dome is a space frame reliant on two layers. • The lower layer, an icosahedral geodesic skin, made up of hexagonal

modules. The hexagonals have approximate diameters ranging from 5m to 11m.

• The hexagon is made up of six straight, compressive, galvanised steel tubes, these are light, relatively small and transportable.

• Each hexagon is pre-assembled on the ground before it is craned into position and simply bolted to its neighbouring hexagon by a standard cast steel node.

• The lower primary layer is joined to a secondary one by diagonal Circular Hollow Section members at the node points.

• Structural stability is obtained by the "shell action" of the intersecting domes.

• The space frame prevents the structure collapsing.• These are anchored to reinforced concrete strip foundations at the

perimeter

Node

Lattice girder and space frame

Space frame