Kulasinghe
The Development of Technology for the use of thin concrete shells for
Port Structures.
Several applications of thin shell structures were seen in the construction of buildings in the Port Development
work. This opportunity was made use of for the investigation of certain problems of design and construction of shell
structures, if this type of construction was to he used. In the nineteen fifties, when this work was started, the
information available in technical literature was not quite adequate for this purpose and a large amount of studies had
to be carried out resulting in sonic innovative solutions to design and construction problems.
Cylindrical Shells
This was the commonest form of shell roof construction but there was no
previous experience of design and construction of such shells within the
country. The Author was, however, aware of the problems associated with their
design and construction. The design involved lengthy calculations, which took a
long time using the electromechanical calculating machines available at that
time. These calculations involved small differences of large numbers which
required working to about seven decimal places. Some short cuts, like the
beam theory were available but care had to be exercised in using these. It was
found that the method of construction developed enabled the calculations also External view of the 50 ft span x 20 ft. wide
to be simplified. cylindrical shell roof in the construction of
which the new technology was developed.
The construction problems in shell construction were -
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travelling centering covering the arch over a short length. Once all
the arches were assembled by prestressing on to the edge beams
they were connected together longitudinally. the cables passing
through the preformed ducts in the shell segments and anchored
to the precast end frames (traverses) of the shell. This resulted in
a thin arch of 20 ft. span and 50 ft. long. The two edge beams
were tied together by transverse ties to take the arch thrust of
the ties arch. The next operation was to tension the main post
tensioning cables in the edge beams and anchor them to the end
traverses, releasing the transverse ties at the some time. This
View from above showing the joints between the precast shell converted the long arch to a cylindrical shell of 50 ft. span and 20
in a group of three cylindrical shells at Galle harbour prior to ft width. This entire operation was carried out at ground level with
jacking UP. Note the double columns for supporting the edge the edge beams resting on the ground. The construction was
and valley beams. A study of technical literature at the time completed by jacking up the shell to the required height using
showed that these techniques had not been used elsewhere. jacks at the four corners and supporting it on columns at these
points.
Saddle shaped Hyperbolic Paraboloid shells have been found very suitable
for the roofs of factories, workshops and similar buildings where large columns
free areas are required. These had desirable features like a longitudinal
curvature enabling drainage of water towards the ends, a curved cross section
convex downwards and the possibility of generating the surface by means of
skew straight limes moving along parabolic curves at the ends. however, this
property which required the prestressing wires being placed skew to the
longitudinal axis of the shell prevented their construction on the long line of
prestressing. A wire which started at the left hand corner of the shell had to go
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to the centre of the other end. The practice had been to cast the shell in
individual moulds made strong enough to take the reaction from the
prestressing wires. The wires had to be released from the moulds before
demoulding, which meant that the concrete had to attain the necessary
strength for this purpose. This required heat curing as no effective accelerators
were available at that time. (late fifties and early sixties) With the use of the
long line, the demoulding could be done without the detensioning of the wires,
but the problem was the changing of the wires from one point in a cross
section to another along the length of the shell. This was achieved by
introducing diaphragms at each end o f the shell which had anchor hooks to fix
the wires in the correct position. This enabled the casting of one shell per
mould every day and a large number of these shells were cast in a 400 ft. long
stressing bed. The shells were 2 inches thick, 5 ft. wide and covered spans up
to 50 ft. giving a very economical solution to roofing of workshops, factories
and similar buildings. A number of buildings including the 50 ft. wide S.E.C.
Workshops at Peliyagoda and the 100 ft. x 100 ft. columns free space for a
Hydraulic Model Testing Laboratory were built in the sixties.
three umbrella shells, each 4Oftx3O ft in plan. The techniques required for the
construction were developed in the course of construction. The heavy
reinforced concrete edge beams normally used, were replaced with lighter
prestresed beams. the post tensioning cables being terminated at intermediate
points, in addition to the ends of the beams. This induced a prestress varying
along the beam which approximately matched the membrane stresses along
the edges of the shell. This also corrected the corner droop of the shells, which
had troubled previous designers of these shells including the famous Prof. T Y
Lin of Berkley. California. He was carrying out model tests, which the Author
saw later, to find the solution to this problems. It was a pleasure for the Author
to inform him of the solution, when the Author met him at the Shell Conference
in Madrid in 1959, where the Author presented his paper on "Umbrella Type
Hyper Parabolic shell roofs with prestressed edge beams". This was a
significant contribution to the design and construction of these shells.
Concrete Roads
A decision was made by the Port Commission to open a road along the sea
front to connect Galle Face Road with the main access road leading up to the
Queen Elizabeth Quay. This provided an opportunity to construct three, four
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These concrete roads were built to demonstrate their suitability for climatic
conditions prevailing in this country as against bitumen surfaced roads which
have to be repaired at frequent intervals. Unfortun4tely the road authorities
have not appreciated the valve of concrete roads and ignored their suitability
for the conditions in
View of the Maha weli Ma/a Seya at Kotmale, during involved in the design were quite complex and the safety requirements
construction: a thin hemispherical shell structure with demanded very accurate analyses. A unique method of constructions
a diameter of 200 ft. was built using several innovative had to he developed to enable such a large and think structure to be
techniques in design and construction. It was almost built. The method adopted was to
impossible to construct this 200 foot diameter thin shell
using conventional method of construction. build a skeletal shell to
the same shape of the
shell itself with the steel reinforcement required for the structure. The
formwork for the shell concrete was supported on the reinforcement
skeleton and concreting was carried out in rings of four feet height.
This involved calculations to determine the stresses in the skeleton and
in the concreted section of the shell at every stage. This was tedious
and required a high degree of skill.
Another monumental structure for which the Author was responsible in the
Sambuddha Jayanthi Chaitya built on Chaitya Road partly constructed by the Colombo
Port Commission and completed by the Colombo Port Authority.
The Varaya Chaithya started by the
CPC to commemorate the Buddha
Jayanthi in 1956, is also a shell
structure supported on a deep hollow
slab carried on two 0 intersecting
arches The hollow slab 60ft. x 60ft.
provides space for a library, a shrine
room, preaching hail and public
space. The seawall foundations of
the arch was placed under the sea,
under compressed air with air-lock
access. Total height is 250 ft. and Kulasinghe Auditorium of the NERD
arch span is 150 ft. Centre. The NERD centre Auditorium is another concrete shell,
200 feet diameter; and one inch thick. The shell roof is
The other interesting shell constructed using a novel method is the a parabolic of revolution, concave upward. A similar
100 ft. diameter tension shell of the "Kulasinghe Auditoriuni' of the structure built later by the NERD centre at the
NERD Centre. This shell is in the shape of a paraboloid of revolution University of Peradeniya as shown.
concave upward with a thickness of less than one inch. The method of
construction was as follows.
The outer reinforced concrete ring beam of 100 ft. in diameter and
a similar concentric inner ring beam of 10 ft. diameter were built on the
ground. The two ring beams were connected by closely spaced radial
pre-stressing cables which were tensioned to a predetermined value.
The outer ring beam was jacked up using sixteen jacks placed at the
sixteen columns spaced along the periphery. The jacking up was
continued till the inner ring beam lifted off the ground. The jacking was
continued, while placing temporary weights on the inner ring beam, till
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the inner ring beam was five feet below the outer ring beam. The
jacking up was continued further till the outer ring beam reached the
designed height of 1 5 ft. The sixteen columns supporting the outer
ring beams were extended as the jacking proceeded till it rested on the
columns at the height of 15 ft. A skin of fibber glass was attached to
the underside of the radial wires and a thin concrete of about one inch
was laid on the fibre glass which acted as form work. The temporary
weights on the inner ring beam were removed progressively to
maintain its sag of 5 ft. below the outer ring beam. Water proofing of
the thin shell completed the tension shell structure. This novel method
of construction resulted in a very low cost. This shell provides a low
cost roof for large areas without internal columns.
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