GREENHOUSE STRUCTURE DESIGN WITH THE OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUE

Greenhouses should be so designed that they have high light transmission especially in winter and at the same time satisfy the requirements of the construction cost and the safety against the loads which may be imposed upon them.
In order to search such designs the optimization technique is introduced.
First the design which has minimun construction cost within the restrictions of the durability against the loads is studied.
Then the design which has maximum light transmission within the restrictions of the construction cost and the durability against the loads is studied.
From these optimizations the knowledge of the suitable shape of the greenhouse, suitable moment of inertia and cross-section features of each member and so on are obtained.
In the case of the minimum construction cost or the maximum light transmission with the N-S orientation the resulted designs are symmetric and have gentle roof slope.
On the contrary the optimal E-W oriented greenhouse has its ridge nearer to the south wall, so that the south roof slope may become steeper.
With the snow load of 30 cm the optimal design has about 4 m ridge-direction span but with the heavier snow load the ridge-direction span becomes shorter and the roof slope steeper both in the case of E-W and N-S orientation.

Symposium on Potential Productivity in Protected Cultivation

K. Kurata, K. Tachibana

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1978.87.1