Ice Shells for Temporary Event Architecture

Temporary ice structures can be used for various purposes such as cultural events, presentation and promotion of sales products or they may serve as a tourist attraction. Considering the low strength of ice as well as its creep behaviour, double curved shells have turned out to be the best suited shapes for ice structures. A new method for the erection of double curved shells is presented. The construction procedure was developed by using a flat plate made of ice and a soft styrofoam component between segments which enables the plate to be deformed into a double curved shell with post-tensioning. An ice dome with a span of about 5 m and a height of 0,9 m was successfully constructed. This paper also presents the experiments with various shapes of shells and the requirements for ice shells.