The paper presents coated woven fabric roof structure analysis, from material characterisation to structural computations. The analysis aims to determine the cause of failure of the technical fabric roof structure in northern Poland. The behaviour of coated woven fabric material is investigated under uniaxial and biaxial tensile tests, tear tests and creep tests. The presented investigations may be considered an expert bearing capacity assessment of a roof structure covered by technical woven fabric. The paper starts with a literature survey on the investigations of coated woven fabrics. Next, laboratory test results are presented. The results indicated that the coated woven fabric behaviour under biaxial stress in the range of operational stresses can be satisfactorily reflected by its behaviour under uniaxial tensile stress. The specified long-term tensile strength covers about 35% of ultimate tensile strength. Structural analysis of the FEM numerical model is addressed too. Experimental studies and numerical calculations indicated that it was not the technical fabric, but errors in the design of its fastening that caused the failure. Finally, the conclusions of the study are shown. This paper provides scientists, engineers, and designers with a background for structural analysis of membrane structures made of coated woven fabric.
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