Sixty years of development of China’s building steel structure

Steel structure includes housing steel structure, bridge, tower mast, container and hydraulic structure and other fields. Now only a brief description of housing steel structure sixty years of development.

Early heyday (1950s and 1960s)

When New China was founded in 1949, steel production was very low, only 1.35 million tons a year (it is now more than 500 million tons). The construction of steel structure only depended on the economic and technical assistance of the Soviet Union. At that time, the Soviet Union aided the construction of 156 heavy industrial plants, including metallurgy, heavy machinery, aircraft and automobile industries, such as Anshan Steel Plant, Wuhan Steel Plant, Dalian Shipyard, Harbin Aircraft Factory and so on. In just a few years, we have built many steel structure industrial plants (steel columns, steel roof frames, crane beams), and trained a large number of talents in design, manufacturing and installation, laying a solid foundation for future development.

Low tide (mid-late 1960s and 1970s)

During this period, the demand for steel structure of various departments of the country increased, but the steel output was still not much, only 20 million tons per year. The state put forward the policy of saving steel, which was one-sided understanding that steel structure was not used, so the number of steel structure was small. From the country as a whole, also built a number of large steel structure projects. Due to the policy of saving steel, the flat grid project has been promoted and applied, especially the successful research on welded hollow ball nodes. The small and medium-sized span welded ball node flat grid can be found everywhere in the country. At the same time, the bolt ball node grid has also been promoted.

Development stage (1980s and 1990s)

These 20 years should be the boom period of the development of steel structure, because steel structure has some unique advantages, has become the main structure in the construction project, especially steel output continues to rise, 100 million tons in 1997, to create conditions for us to develop steel structure. In 1998, our country was able to produce rolled H-beam, which provided a new series of H-beam for steel structure. The development of steel structure engineering during this period mainly includes the following aspects.

— Single-storey workshop frame structure. Large-scale steel plants, seamless steel pipe plants, thermal power plants and so on. It is characterized by large area (200,000 square meters), column height (50 meters), column distance (48 meters), even span (8 span), crane lifting weight (450 tons) and so on.

— Space frame structure. Flat grid has been widely used in large sports venues, exhibition centers, shopping malls, terminals, stations, warehouses, factories and so on. In particular, most of the venues of the 1990 Asian Games used welded hollow ball joint flat grid. 1996 Beijing Capital HANGAR (153 m +153 m, depth 90 m), welding ball joint four-angle cone three layer grid. In the same year, Xiamen Swire Hangar 150×70 meters was built, and the gate adopts unbonded manual cable rod arch.

– Several projects of mesh shell. 1994 Tianjin Gymnasium (D=108 m) double-layer spherical mesh shell; In 1997, Changchun Gymnasium (146m × 191.8m) double-layer square steel tube net shell, and in 1995, Heilongjiang Skating Hall (86.2 m × 191.2m) central cylindrical net shell at both ends of the hemisphere shell. In 1995, Sichuan Panzhihua Gymnasium used eight sides petal type double layer net Nanning, span 60 meters, using multiple prestressed. This is the first time in China to use multiple prestressed engineering. In 1998, the main hall of Shanghai International Gymnastics Center was built, which is made of aluminum alloy spherical mesh shell with a diameter of 68 meters. There are corresponding design rules for grid frame and shell.

— Suspension cable structure. The structure develops slowly and is only used in a few projects, such as Shandong Zibo Stadium (54 meters) and Anhui Stadium (53 meters ×72 meters), Wuxi Stadium (40 meters ×43 meters) and Jilin Ice Hockey Stadium, which use different cable net systems.

— The concrete combination system composed of spatial structure, arch and rigid frame has also been developed, such as: Beijing Shijingshan Stadium for the Asian Games (equilateral triangle, side length 99.7 meters), etc., which is a mixed structure system.

— Membrane and cable membrane structure. In the late 1990s, it has been developed to a certain extent and is still expanding its role, which has a good prospect for development. For example, the stadium stands of 80,000 people in Shanghai built in 1998 are relatively large scale cable membrane structures.

– Steel structure of high-rise buildings. The steel structure of high-rise buildings started relatively late. In 1987, the first building was the 165-meter Shenzhen Development Center building, then the 208-meter Jingguang Center, the 325-meter Shenzhen Diwang Building in 1996, and the 420-meter Shanghai Jinmao Building in 1999. The recently built Shanghai World Financial Center.

— Light steel structure. The development of light steel structure is very fast, especially the door frame, such as industrial plant, warehouse, cold storage, greenhouse, hotel, villa and so on has been widely used. Light steel structure housing also began to study and build some experimental projects, very promising prospects for development. In this period, the steel structure code of 74 was revised again, and the code of 88 was used.

Strong period (this century, before 2009)

The rapid development of steel structure engineering in the past ten years and the wide scope are unprecedented, which can be called the world’s steel structure power. In 2006, the steel output was 400 million tons, ranking first in the world, which also created favorable conditions for us to develop steel structure engineering.

Traditional spatial structures such as grid frames and reticulated shells continue to be vigorously promoted. New spatial structures have been widely used, such as stretched-string beams, stretched-string trusses, and string-supported domes. Shanghai Pudong Airport, Harbin Convention and Exhibition Center, Shanghai Convention and Exhibition Center, Guangdong Convention and Exhibition Center and so on all use more than 100 meters of tension-string truss, which is also rare in the world. In particular, several games and expos have adopted more spatial structure, such as 37 new venues for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the 2009 National Games in Jinan, Shandong Province, the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and Guangzhou Asian Games, and the 2011 Shenzhen Universiade. It is worth mentioning that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games built 12 venues, which represents the technical level of steel structure in our country. National Stadium (Bird’s Nest)(292 meters ×340 meters, by a series of super-span door type rigid frame along the inner ring of the spatial structure, steel consumption of 42,000 tons; National Aquatics Center (Water Cube)(170m × 70m × 29m, special-shaped polyhedral grid structure); National Stadium (114 m ×144.5 m two-way tensioned string truss structure); Laoshan Cycling Stadium (133 meters double-layer spherical mesh shell), Wukesong Stadium (120 meters ×120 meters two-way orthogonal put truss composed of grid); Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium (Badminton Hall)(105m chord dome); China Agricultural University Gymnasium (Wrestling hall)(90m × 90m portal rigid frame structure); Peking University Gymnasium (Table Tennis Hall)(64 m ×80 m tension-string mesh shell composed of 32 trusses of radiation) and other projects.

The 2009 National Games in Jinan, Shandong Province mainly has a stadium, gymnasium, natatorium and tennis center. The whole building complex adopts the architectural shape of “East Lotus and West Willow”, which reflects the local characteristics of Jinan. In particular, the stadium adopts the 122m diameter string supported dome, which will become the largest span string supported dome structure in China and even the world.

The Shanghai World Expo venues are even more spectacular. The four pavilions on one axis (China Pavilion, Expo Center, Theme Pavilion and Performing Arts Center) are all permanent buildings with great characteristics. In addition, hundreds of national pavilions, corporate pavilions and other buildings representing different creative countries are also worth visiting.

Of course, in addition to several Games and expo venues, it is worth mentioning: Shanghai World Financial Center, Beijing Capital International Airport new terminal, Beijing South Railway Station, National Center for the Performing Arts, CCTV new site, Shanghai South Railway Station, Beijing New Poly Building, Zhengzhou International Convention and Exhibition Center, Nantong Stadium, Guangzhou TV Tower, West Tower, new theater, museum and so on. As a result of these characteristic projects, also produced a number of steel structure manufacturing, installation of new technology. At the same time, a large number of advanced steel structure enterprises have emerged, which is very beneficial to the development of steel structure industry in the future.

As for steel structure housing, due to the support of policy and the efforts of engineering and technical personnel during this period, great achievements have been made. The construction of pilot projects and the publication of technical regulations have been implemented, which have the conditions for further development.