Review and Prospect of Steel Structure Building

    After the 1960s, steel structure buildings entered a new stage of development. At this stage, breakthroughs have been made in construction steel materials, calculation theory has been further deepened, and computers have been widely used...Steel structure buildings have the advantages of less cost and more use (more with less), short construction period, flexible use, and low maintenance costs , good anti-seismic performance, high comprehensive economic benefits, in line with the concept of sustainable development and other advantages are fully revealed.

    At present, the world's leading building material is steel. Steel structures have become the leading building structures in theworld, and are widely used in high-rise, super high-rise buildings, large-span and large-space buildings, small and medium-sized industrial, commercial, community, cultural, educational and health buildings. , and most of the low-rise non-residential buildings.

Review and Prospect of Steel Structure Building

    Any real design must be based on the premise of transcending the status quo. Know what happened in the past and gain insight into what will happen in the future. Only when we appreciate how our predecessors have demonstrated their ingenuity in architecture will we be able to create truly innovative buildings of our time.  

    1. Late eighteenth century to early twentieth century

    The first metal structures used in building houses date back to England at the end of the eighteenth century. Since fires werecommon in cotton mills at the time and brick walls prevented the arrangement of machinery, an iron frame was used in the structure of the building.

    It is actually a masonry-iron frame mixed structure building.  

    After the successful attempt of masonry-iron frame mixed structure buildings, some large-span single-storey buildings that need to be built quickly, such as markets, railway station sheds, greenhouses, exhibition halls, etc., have adopted iron structures one after another. By the mid-19th century, the famous "Crystal Palace" appeared in Europe, and multi-storey commercial buildings with all-iron frames appeared in the United States.  

    At the same time, the output of steel in capitalist countries increased rapidly, and the price dropped. The high strength, good toughness and plasticity of steel make iron pale in comparison. As a result, the iron structure was gradually replaced by the steel structure, coupled with the advancement of calculation theory, the height and span of the building were greatly improved.  

    The leap in height is the Eiffel Tower built in 1889 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. The iron tower is 300 meters high, has 12,000 components, is connected as a whole with 2.5 million bolts and rivets, and uses 7,000 tons of high-quality steel. the

    Two years later (1891), a 22-story steel structure building appeared in Chicago, a 26-story steel structure building was built in New York in 1898, and the 241m-high Olwas Building in New York came out in 1913. The real era of skyscrapers began.

    The span of the building is also constantly leaping forward. In 1849, a station in Liverpool used iron trusses with a span of 46.3 meters, surpassing the span of the Pantheon in Rome (43.3 meters) for the first time.

    In 1868, a station shed in London used iron arched trusses with a span of 74 meters.

    In 1893, the span of a railway station in Philadelphia, USA reached 91.4 meters.

    2. From the beginning of the twentieth century to the middle of the twentieth century

    During this period, steel was mainly used in the construction of factories, hangars, etc. At the beginning of the 20th century, industrial architecture was leading the new trend of world architecture.  

    3. From the middle of the 20th century to the end of the 20th century

    After the 1960s, breakthroughs have been made in construction steel, such as the advent of new color profiled steel plates, new high-performance cold-formed thin-walled steels, and the third-generation hot-rolled steels—H-beams. With the help of computers, the development of light steel structures, space steel structures, high-rise steel structures, and steel-concrete composite structures has entered a truly golden age.

    Light steel building

    Light steel buildings have now monopolized the market for low-rise non-residential buildings. The latest data show that light steel buildings have occupied more than 70% of the non-residential buildings.

   Space steel structure building

    (1) Suspension structure building

    Grid frame and reticulated shell structure emerged on the structural stage after the 1960s, and soon replaced the reinforced concrete shell structure, becoming the main form of contemporary large-span spatial structure.

    The industrialization of building components has injected strong vitality into the development of reticulated shell structures. In recent years, reticulated shell structures have been more and more widely used in long-span buildings such as sports buildings and transportation buildings.

    (2) Tensioned cable structure building and tensioned membrane structure building

    In the 1950s, with the emergence of the tensioned cable structure system, the tensioned membrane structure system was also born.

   High-rise steel structure building

   Steel-concrete composite structure building

    From the beginning of the 21st century to the present

    After mankind entered the 21st century, there have been no breakthroughs in structural technology in the fields of light steel structures, space steel structures, and high-rise steel structures.

    Technical aesthetic tendency of steel structure

    In recent years, high-tech buildings have incorporated the idea of ecological aesthetics and paid more attention to regional culture. The content of its technical expression has expanded, and ecological technology and regional culture have also been included in the scope of expression. The idea of technical aesthetics emphasizes the combination of technology and art, and has the characteristics of structural rationality, so it is widely accepted. The mainstream schools of architecture in the world today mostly use steel structure technology and other high-strength technologies as technical means, and develop in depth along the path of organic integration of technology and art.  

    Prospects for steel structure buildings

    Due to the great advantages of steel structure buildings, many countries are researching and developing this kind of buildings. Several trends are particularly noteworthy:

    1. The planar structure is mostly replaced by the spatial structure

    Change from the two-dimensional structure of the past to the three-dimensional structure of the present and future.

    2. Processing is developing towards refinement

    The steel components and their joints have clear force, beautiful proportions, and fine handover, fully displaying the delicate and smooth texture of metal.

    3. Combination of steel structure technology and ecological technology

    The combination of steel structure technology and ecological technology is an inevitable choice in the context of ecological crisis, and it must also be the main development direction of steel structure buildings for a long period of time in the future.

    4. Combination trends of steel and concrete

    The steel structure and the concrete structure have their own strengths, and the comprehensive utilization of the advantages of the two structures has opened up a new way for the development of the steel structure and the concrete structure. 

    Statistical analysis shows that the amount of steel used in high-rise buildings using steel-concrete composite structures is about 70% of that of steel structures, and the construction speed is equivalent to that of all-steel structures. The comprehensive economic index is better than the comprehensive economic index of all-steel structure and all-concrete structure.