Study on the thermal behavior of aluminum reticulated shell structures considering solar radiation

• The solar radiation absorption coefficient of aluminum was firstly measured.
• A numerical method for temperature was presented and verified by test data.
• The non-uniform temperature effect of aluminum domes was studied.
• The solar radiation has a significant effect on the aluminum dome.

The aluminum dome has been more and more widely adopted in industrial and civil buildings, and the span is up to 140 m. Because the thermal expansion coefficient of aluminum with a value of 2.3×10−5 is almost two times than that of steel, the temperature change will induce significant thermal deformation and thermal stress, especially for the large span aluminum domes under solar radiation. In this paper, the solar radiation absorption coefficient was firstly measured using spectrophotometer, and then a numerical simulation method was presented and verified by test dada. To take a aluminum dome project with a span of 125 m for an example, the non-uniform temperature distribution and change under solar radiation were analyzed using the presented method, and following conclusions were obtained: (1) The thermal load is the key load for the aluminum domes, and the solar radiation has a significant effect on the thermal behavior of the aluminum domes. Therefore, the non-uniform thermal load considering solar radiation has to be considered in the future design. (2) There is a remarkable variation of member stress, and it is necessary to study the fatigue behavior of the aluminum domes under solar radiation.