Experimental study on wrinkle-influencing factors of a rectangular membrane

Membrane structures are popularly used in civil engineering and aerospace engineering. Their wrinkling deformation induced by external load is affected by various factors and presents different characteristics. The related research, however, has not yet been found in the present literature. This paper aims to study the wrinkle-influencing factors and their effects on the wrinkling parameters of membrane structures by experimenting on a rectangular membrane under shear. A special experimental setup with high accuracy was developed to reduce the perturbation of errors induced by boundary conditions. Pre-tensioning and shear displacements were applied with micrometers and wrinkling deformation was measured with a non-contacting laser displacement sensor. Influences of boundary conditions, pre-tensioning displacement and thickness of membrane on the wrinkling deformation were experimentally explored according to the variations of wrinkling parameters such as wrinkling amplitude, wrinkling angle, half wavelength and wrinkling number. The results indicate that both wrinkling amplitude and wrinkling number increase with shear displacement, but half wavelength decreases accordingly with little change in the wrinkling angle. Increasing pre-tensioning displacement reduces the wrinkling amplitude and half wavelength, but induces a rise in the wrinkling angle and wrinkling number. An increase in the thickness of membrane decreases the wrinkling number, but increases the wrinkling amplitude and half wavelength with little influence on the wrinkling angle. © 2020, Editorial Office of Journal of Building Structures. All right reserved.