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ABSTRACT
The Church of the Laboral University of Gijón has the world’s largest elliptical masonry roof with a 40.8 m major axis. This large structure is vertically self-supported with 20 pairs of masonry ribs crossing each other and horizontally supported by means of two elliptical ring beams at the top of the dome. In order to study this historic building, this paper presents the overall three-dimensional structural numerical analysis of the roof. It includes nonlinearities due to materials, geometry, and contacts between structural elements of the building. Temperature, moisture content, and dead loads are included in the hygrothermal structural analysis of the dome. In this nonlinear numerical analysis displacements, stress, cracking, and crushing are evaluated. The influence of moisture content on the structure performance and other relevant conclusions are presented.
Acknowledgments
The authors greatly appreciate the collaboration of the GICONSIME Research Group at the University of Oviedo, and also to Ignacio Rojo Blanco, a Master industrial engineering student at the University of Oviedo. We would also like to thank Swanson Analysis Inc. for the use of the ANSYS University program and Workbench simulation environment. Furthermore, authors must acknowledge the financial support provided by regional funds from the Gobierno del Principado de Asturias and FICYT through the Research Projects GRUPIN-IDI/2018/000221 and AYUD/2021/51328, both also co-financed with FEDER funds. Finally, authors must acknowledge the alumni association of La Laboral and, particularly, to Victor Camblor Prieto to provide real photographs and some useful information to prepare this research work.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).