Stability of pseudo-funicular elastic grid shells

The paper presents some results on the influence of the pre-stress induced by the erection method of elastic grid shells on their buckling capacity. It starts with the numerical methods and their validation with the study of a pre buckled arch. Then, a form-finding scheme using low-speed dynamics is used to generate automatically a family of elastic grid shells, and their buckling capacity is compared to the one of grid shells with the exact same geometry, but without any pre-stress. The paper demonstrates finally that the pre-stress decreases by a few percent the buckling capacity of elastic grid shells.