Buckling capacity of radially compressed thin-walled reinforced cementitious spheres

High performance cementitious materials have made possible the construction of slender thin cementitious shells. For their design, the most relevant recommendations are those provided by the International Association of Spatial Structures (IASS), which, however, are inconsistent with the modern European design framework. In the case of steel shells, Eurocode 3 provides a simplified design approach based on the well-known buckling capacity curves. The aim of this paper is the determination of the capacity curve of a radially compressed spherical cementitious shell, for different fabrication quality classes and the determination of the four buckling parameters that describe the curve.