Tool to design masonry double-curved shells

Abstract

This paper introduces a new application to design masonry double-curved shells. It uses the theory of Thrust Network Analysis (TNA) to analyse a parameter based force network model. One goal of the application is to optimise the communication between the architect and engineer and reduce the time needed to create a conceptual design. In order to achieve this, the application is made interactive: after any change made in the force network the analysis and results are updated instantly. In this paper the four main steps of the application as well as the applied theories will be presented.