Shaping of Spatial Steel Rod Structures Based on a Hyperbolic Paraboloid

The aim of the study was to develop a practical approach to parametric shaping of spatial steel rod structures formed based on a hyperbolic paraboloid. This design approach was realized by application of designing tools working in environment of Rhinoceros 3D, that is its plug-in Grasshopper for geometric modelling and Karamba 3D for structural analysis. The goal of this research was to elaborate an universal scripts in order to create rod structures’ models of various forms and grid patterns, as well as evaluating their structural behaviour dependently on various boundary conditions. The optimisation criterion was the minimum mass and deflection. Several proposals of coverings by means of single layer grid structures were presented and analysed to choose the best solution. The rod structures generated based on a hyperbolic paraboloid turned out to be structures with good static properties, so may be an interesting proposals to cover large areas.