Design aids and selection guidelines for composite conoidal shell roofs - A finite element application

An eight node curved quadratic isoparametric element is applied to develop a computer code, and the formulation is validated through solution of benchmark problems which were earlier solved by other researchers. Numerical problems are solved for ten different practical boundary conditions and four different laminations of conoidal shells to study the relative performances of different shell options in terms of all important shell actions, apart from deflections. The study indicates a method to compare the efficiencies of two shell options using a relative performance matrix. Specific conclusions are drawn at the end, to summarize the outcome of the present investigation, which are expected to serve as important design aids to engineers engaged in composite shell construction.