Learning Activities for Mastering Flexible Roof Constructions

Flexible roofs become an integral part of modern building constructions. Being widely used for public buildings, they have great potential in the field of industrial construction as well. Flexible roofs, however, possess complex structural behavior. They require deep understanding of the key concepts by designers and project managers, who implement them into a real life. Civil engineering and architectural specializations need to incorporate flexible constructions into the academic activity. It will ensure competitiveness of prospective specialists in the job market. Active learning approach is considered for mastering flexible roof structures. Prototyping is an essential tool for long-term memorization of the key concepts. Modern computer technologies and specialized software packages, however, gradually displace laboratory modeling. Structural deformability, geometrically nonlinear behavior, preliminary stressing and equilibrium structural shape can be easily grasped by means of computer simulation and numerical investigation of exemplary constructions.