Identification and Adjustment of the Pretension Deviation in Cable-Strut Tensile Structures

Construction errors inevitably arise in real cable-strut tensile structures. Nevertheless, construction error analysis and evaluation, as well as methods to identify the source of the errors and proper adjustment methods to compensate for these errors, remain in their infancies. In this study, the relationship between pretension deviation and element length deviation is first established based on the three basic equations for pin-joint structures. On this basis, identification methods are proposed to identify the sources of the pretension deviation caused by the active cable length deviation and the pretension deviation caused by both the active and the passive cable length deviations. Using measured data, an adjustment method is developed for the pretension deviation under different scenarios. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the adjustment method for the pretension deviation is discussed using the evaluation indices. Finally, a case study is presented and demonstrates that the proposed identification method can identify the sources of the pretension deviations. The number of adjusted cables will affect the level of adjustment for the pretension deviation. During the adjustment of the pretension deviation, different adjustment methods will result in different shape deviations and different maximum displacements.