Use of Natural Fiber and Recyclable Materials for Spacers in Typical Space Truss Connections

Abstract

Space trusses are extensively used to construct large free spans in roofs. In many countries, connections in such space trusses are made with tubes linked by typical space-truss connections. Typical nodes are made with the superposition of flattened tube ends significantly reducing the strength of such space trusses. This paper presents the use of natural sisal fiber and the reuse of recyclable tires to produce spacers to correct such typical nodes. The choice of those new materials reflects the growing interest in recycling, reducing, and reusing usable waste. There is increasing global environmental awareness of and social concern with the high rate of petroleum resource depletion as in tire manufacture. Moreover, the new environmental and sustainability regulations in engineering arouse interest in new and natural materials like sisal fibers. Therefore, in this paper, two new spacers are presented as an appropriate choice to reduce the eccentricity of typical connections in space trusses. The results of experimental and numerical tests show their efficiency in reducing the eccentricities of typical nodes, increasing the resistance capacity of space trusses with low cost materials. Finite-element (FE) results are compared with experimental results validating the advantages of using these new spacers in typical connections in space-truss nodes.