GB2026584A - Roofing - Google Patents

Abstract

Load-bearing and water-tight roofing comprises support elements 1 of inverted channel form. The centre line of each element 1 may be flat, or curved in the vertical plane to the extent that the height of the arch above the chord is at most 10% of the length of the element. The elements 1 are interconnected end-to-end by spigot and socket joints. Sheet roofing elements 9 of, e.g. plastics, which are flat or arcuate in cross-section are seated on and fastened to the support elements at overlapping joints. The width of the sheet roofing elements 9 is between one quarter and two thirds of their length. Cross-ties 5 may be employed between the support elements 1, which may be of glass fibre reinforced polyester resin. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Modular load-bearing and watertight shell construction of arbitrarily selectable span and length.

The invention concerns a load-bearing and watertight shell (skin) construction of arbitrarily selectable span and length, consisting of modular elements, preferably support and skin-forming elements made of plastics material.

Various kinds of roofing structure assembled from elements made of glassfibre-reinforced polyester resin are already known. The reason for their widespread application is that such structures can be built of elements with a wall thickness of only a few millimetres requiring very little material that are suitable for roofing of large openings, with a translucent or opaque finish, and with or without heat insulation.For bridging of spans one or two circular or eiliptical narrow elements made of fibre reinforced plastics material are used i.e. the arcuate bridging elements must have dimensions of at least one-quarter of a circle or of an ellipse; (see Hintersdorf: "Tragwerke aus Plasten" pp.31-33; Saechtling:"Bauen mit Kunststoffen" pp.208-209 and 454; IfL-Mitt. 5 (1.966)12., p.448; Kuhle "Raumliche Dachtragwerke, Kb'nstriiktion und Aiisfuhrung" 1970 Volume 2, p.138; Sebestyen:"Kiinnyijszerkezetes épités" Budapest, 1972, pp.4l-42).

It is a common drawback of known roofing constructions that the size of the span that can be bridged by a single piece or by two arcuate pieces is very limited and requires very large lengths of such elements; the production, storage and transportation of such elements involves great difficulties.

Moreover, one specific type of element is only suitable for bridging one specific span width, hence a great variety of elements with differing dimensions and consequently a large number of production tools or templates are required.

An aim of the invention is to provide a roofing construction consisting of elements having favourable dimensions from the point of view of manufacture, storage, transportation and assembly while being suitable for bridging over span widths selectable as desired as well as being water-tight, corrosion-resistant and heat insulating, repeatedly dismantleable and reassembleable and capable of providing natural lighting for the interior of the structure to be roofed.

The invention is based on the discovery that it is possible, relatively easily to manufacture from a plastics material, preferably from a glassfibrereinforced polyester, sets of structural elements consisting of only a few element types that can be easily handled and with the aid of which a shell construction with the required span width and length can be created by a suitable selection and juxtaposition of such elements, having regard to the size of opening to be covered over.

The essence of the shell roof construction according to the invention is that its support elements are open boxes that widen downwardly, the centre line of each box in a vertical plane being curved at most only to the extent that the height of the arc measured above the chord does not exceed 10% of the length of the element. The end elements of the shell construction are also downwardly widening at least partially open boxes. Expediently, one end of these elements has an extension piece, the external periphery of the cross-section of which is no greater than the internal periphery of the cross-section of the elements. Shell elements are laid in an overlapping arrangement and fastened to the support arches assembled with the aid of jointing extension pieces and tying elements.The length of the shell elements equals the sum of the span of the support arches and the extent of overlapping and the width is preferably between one-quarter and two-thirds of the length.

Beneath the support elements and the end elements there are binding pieces fastened with tie elements to the arches. If required, insulating boards may be placed on the arches of the support and end elements.

A preferred embodiment of the invention is described, purely by way of example, with reference to the accompanying schematic drawings, wherein: Figure 1 is a side view of a support element embodied in the invention, Figures 2 and 3 respectively show crosssections of the support element illustrated in Figure 1, taken along the planes I--I and Il-I I; the sectional plane Il-Il being shown also in Figure 4;; Figure 4 shows an end element embodied in the invention partly in side view and partly in longitudinal section, Figure 5 is a cross-section of an end element illustrated in Figure 4, taken along the plane ill-Ill in figure 4, Figure 6 is a longitudinal section of a roof construction according to the invention, Figure 7 is a cross-section of the roof construction illustrated in Figure 6, and Figure 8 is a plan view of the roof construction according to the invention and shown in Figure 6.

Referring to the drawings, Figures 1 to 3 show a support element 1 which is made as a one-piece component of plastics material in the form of a downwardly widening open box with two lower arches 2. Countersunk bores 3 are drilled into one end of the support element 1; its other end is provided with an extension piece 4 closed off by an end plate. The dimensions of the external contour line of the cross-section lI-Il of the extension piece 4 are identical with the dimensions of the internal contour line of the cross section I-I of the support element 1 provided with the countersunk bores 3 can be placed on the extension piece 4 of a like element which is then drilled through the countersunk bores 3 and the two elements are therafter screwed together.The joint is reinforced by tie pieces 5 screwed to the arches 2 of two adjacent elements. The support element 1 can be further stiffened at other places by similar tie pieces 5.

Each end of the support arch assembled from support elements 1 is constituted by an end element 6. One end of the end element 6 is closed and comprises a sole face 7 by means of which the end element 6 bears against a support 8. The other end of the element 6 is the extension piece 4 for connecting the end element 6 to the support element 1. The support 8 may be made of reinforced concrete or it may be a welded construction, a container, a space element etc.

The support arch thus consists of two end elements 6 and as many support elements 1 as are required by the length of the span to be bridged over. The extension piece 4 had to be cut from one of these support elements 1 or, if the length of the span width is different from the modular dimensions defined by the length of support element 1 , then a portion of appropriate length must be cut from the side of the support element 1 facing the extension piece 4 (Figure 7, 1A). Shell-forming elements 9 made of plastics material serve to form the shell roof construction; the length of each element 9 corresponds to the span of the support arches, increased by an allowance for overlapping. The cross-section of each shell-forming element 9 follows the curvature of support element 1, its longitudinal section forming a full-wave cosine line.Each shellforming element 9 is riveted to the support arch as well as to the overlapping contiguous shellforming element 9. If a roof construction with heat insulation is required, this can be provided by placing insulating plates 10 on the arches 2.

The high load-bearing capacity of the roof construction according to the invention permits the suspension of transport conveyor belts, travelling cages of cranes or other transporting means. Steel girders 11 fastened to the arches 2 serve for this purpose.

In the illustrated embodiment of the invention the arc length of the centre line of the support element 1 is 7.5 metres; its radius of curvature is 20 metres and the height of arch is 350.5 millimetres, i.e. 4.7% of the length of arch. The length of arc of the centre line is extended by the extension piece 3 by 350 millimetres. The length of arc of the centre line of the end element 6 is 1 800 millimetres, which is similarly extended by the extension piece 4 by 350 millimetres. The height of the cross-sections of elements 1, 6 is 800 millimetres, the width of arches 2 is 200-200 millimetres, the total width of the elements is approximately 1400 millimetres.

With a support arch assembed from two end elements 6 and three support elements 1, a span of 24 metres can be covered: with an arch consisting of four support elements 1, thus can be increased to a span of 30 metres and with an arch consisting of five support elements 1 to a span of 34 metres. As has already been mentioned, any other size of the span lying between the abovementioned ones can be bridged in such a way that one support element 1 is cut to the necessary length while at the same time also cutting off the associated extension piece 4. Thus, e.g. the embodiment of the invention illustrated in figure 7, an opening of 28 metres span width is bridged in such a way that the support element 1 A is shortened to a length of 4966 millimetres, by cutting off a piece from that part thereof which includes the extension piece 4.

In this embodiment, the shell-forming element 9 has a length of 6500 millimetres corresponding to the span width of 6 metres of the support arches with an allowance for overlapping, and has a width of 2150 millimetres inclusive of overlapping.

The main advantage of the shell construction according to the invention can be summarised as follows: The elements can be mass-produced from a synthetic resin material; their weight is small; both from the point of view of storage and transportation; they need little floor space, therefore they can be manufactured more economically in production plants rather than on site; and assembly of the structure is simple and does not require complicated and expensive scaffoldings. The resultant roof is water-tight and readiiy heat-insulated and therefore there is no need for the preparation of insulation on site from rolled insulating materials. The appearance of the shell roof construction is modern, it can be made of corrosion-resistant coloured, translucent or opaque materials. It can be dismantled, transferred to other sites and reassembled, even with different dimensions and it requires the storage of only a few components of different type.

Claims (5)

1. A load-bearing and water-tight shell structure assembled from modular elements, preferably support elements and shell elements as well as jointing elements made of plastics material, with discretionally selectable span width and length, comprising support elements in the form of downwardly widening open boxes the centre line of which is not curved or curved at most only such that the height of the arch above the chord of the arch does not exceed 10% of the length of the element; end elements in the form of downwardly widening, at least partially open boxes, one end of at least some of said elements being provided with an extension piece, the dimensions of the external contour line of the cross-section of the extension piece being no greater than the dimensions of the internal contour line of the cross-section of the elements and shell forming elements which are overlappingly laid on and fastened to the support arches formed by said elements and extension pieces as well as tying elements, the length of said shell forming elements being the sum of the span width together with the overlap.

2. A shell construction according to claim 1 wherein the width of each said shell forming element is between one quarter and two thirds of its length.

3. A shell construction according to claim 1 or claim 2 wherein beneath the support elements and the end elements tie elements are placed and fastened to the belts or arches by means of connecting elements.

4. A shell construction according to any preceding claim wherein insulating boards are laid on the belts or arches of said support elements and end elements.

5. A shell structure substantially as herein described with reference to and as shown in the accompanying drawings.

5. A shell construction substantially as herein described with reference to and as shown in the accompanying drawings.

New claims or amendments to claims filed on 24.8.79.

Superseded claims 1-5.

New or amended claims

1. A load-bearing and water-tight shell structure assembled from modular elements, preferably support elements and shell elements as well as jointing elements made of plastics material, with discretionally selectable span width and length, comprising support elements each in the form of downwardly widening open boxes the centre line of which is not curved or curved at most only such that the height of the arch above the chord of the arch does not exceed 10% of the length of each support element; end elements each in the form of downwardly widening at least partially open boxes, one end of at least some of said support and end elements being provided with an extension piece, the dimensions of the external contour line of the cross-section of the extension piece being not greater than the dimensions of the internal contour line of the cross-section of the elements, and shell-forming elements which are overlappingly laid on and fastened to the support arches or column formed by said support and end elements and extension pieces, the length of said shell-forming elements being the sum of the span width between the support arches or columns and the overlap of the shell-forming elements and the width of each said shell-forming element is between one-quarter and two-third.of its length.

2. A shell structure according to claim 1 wherein beneath the support elements and the end elements tie elements are placed and are fastened to the columns or arches.

3. A shell structure according to claim 1 or 2, wherein insulating boards are laid on the columns or arches formed by said support elements and end elements.

4. A shell structure according to any preceding claim, wherein the support and/or end elements are made of glass fibre reinforced polyester.