PORTUGUESE STANDARDS APPLIED TO GREENHOUSE STRUCTURAL DESIGN

Many portuguese greenhouses are built by growers or other non specialized builders and were not designed for adequate structural strength.
The lack of specific standards for greenhouses leads the engineer to base the design on the general portuguese building codes.

The actions to consider are defined and quantified and include permanent and variable actions.
Permanent actions are quantified through characteristic values but variable actions also include reduced values.
A special reference is made to the wind and snow actions.

Finally some comments are made about the application of the general standards to the particular case of greenhouses covered with plastic films and the need of new specific standards is underlined.

II Workshop on Greenhouse Construction and Design

J.F. Meneses

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1990.281.13