With the beginning of the industrialisation, the need of large covered spaces suddenly existed. Along with the main purpose of covering of large areas, the demand for column-free spaces has also increased. More than 50 years ago, the development of space grid structures suddenly allowed building large-spanning roofs and column-free spaces. Apart from structural intentions, natural
lightning equally became a more and more important aspect in the clients’ demands. Until recently, traditional steel or timber space grid structures were covered by transparent materials, mainly glass. The function of the glazed roofing may be described as a coating; the glass does not serve as part of the load bearing system. The intention of this study is to point out the potential of
space grid structures with steel-glass modules in roof applications.
The high compressive strength of glass should allow for significantly large in-plane forces being distributed and transferred through the glass panes. If the glass panes are installed in the compression zone of the space-grid structure, the complete replacement of the former compression members within the same layer is feasible. The glazing fulfils a double function: it serves for the load
transfer as part of the load bearing structure and for the roof covering.
Transforming usual steel space-grid structures into innovative transparent space grid structures assembled of steel-glass-modules is described on the example of a plain double layer grid.
Starting from the construction principles of traditional space grid structures another criteria for the construction of space grid structures with steel-glass-modules need to be defined. These criteria cover especially the fields of structure geometry, of element choice, of stability and failure behaviour. The
amount of useful and economic grid-solutions is significantly reduced. Beside statically criteria and the preferred high modularisation grade with identical elements especially high transparency and variation possibilities of the roof play an important role to create attractive, innovative and path breaking roof
structures, not only today but in the future, too.
During the research, an experimental mock-up of the roof construction with a span of 10 m was built. The design of the experimental setup was chosen by the results of the theoretical investigations, described in the abstract. Experiments on the roof emphasise the realistic approach to realize such roofs in construction projects in very near future.