Originally conceived as a livestock judging arena for the North Carolina State Fair, the J.S. Dorton Arena was designed around an unobstructed central space. Severud Associates was engaged in 1950 to develop designer Matthew Nowicki’s preliminary sketches into a final structural design. The arena’s roughly 300 foot diameter cable net roof rises 90 feet at its tallest points. It was the first permanent cable supported roof in the world at the time of its completion in 1952.<\/p>\n
Two inclined parabolic concrete arches bear against each other in compression and are balanced by a cable net roof in tension. Primary cables running parallel to the peak-to-peak axis carry gravity loads, while secondary cables cross the arches perpendicular to the primary system and resist wind loads. The opposing curvature of the concave primary cables and convex secondary cables creates the roof’s distinctive hyperbolic form and keeps the arches in pure compression under balanced loading conditions.<\/p>\n
Unbalanced wind suction, particularly when combined with thermal expansion that can slacken the secondary cables, required additional stabilization. Guy cables connect selected intersections of the main cable net to the perimeter columns. These tertiary cables stabilize the roof under changing conditions while reducing the prestressing force required in the cable net, allowing the secondary cables to be smaller in diameter.<\/p>\n
Steel perimeter columns encased in concrete support the dead weight of the concrete arches and the seating bowl while also serving as mullions for the glass enclosure. Although the arches appear to continue to the ground, they terminate at their intersections. Concrete extensions and a steel column directly beneath each intersection form a rigid tripod abutment. The tripod columns were hydraulically jacked during construction to control stresses, while underground prestressed steel cables tie the opposing abutments together and resist the horizontal thrust of the arches.<\/p>\n
Severud Associates coordinated the complex interactions of the primary, secondary and tertiary cables with the arches, tripod abutments, perimeter columns and foundations. Together, these systems resist gravity, wind and thermal movement while keeping the arena floor free of interior roof support columns. The structural significance of this integrated system was recognized in 2002, when the American Society of Civil Engineers designated the J.S. Dorton Arena a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Developing a Cable-Supported Arena Originally conceived as a livestock judging arena for the North Carolina State Fair, the J.S. Dorton Arena was designed around an unobstructed central space. Severud Associates was engaged in 1950 to develop designer Matthew Nowicki’s preliminary sketches into a final structural design. The arena’s roughly 300 foot diameter cable net roof … Continue reading “JS Dorton Arena”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,12,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletic","category-cultural","category-historic","category-special-structures"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2389"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9113,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions\/9113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev70.fiveminutes.in\/severud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}