Abstract
The paper presents the results of elasto-plastic analyses and failure experiments of free formed shells. The shapes of free- formed shells were obtained by numerical form finding process. The five models, with different loading modes and different rises, and three models with different tie beam stiffness were tested. And the results of them were compared with analytical results. The shell response was obtained by material and geometrically nonlinear analysis. These analytical results show the good agreement with the test results. And these results indicate that the stiffness and load carrying capacity of the free-formed reinforced concrete shells are considerably affected by the loading mode , difference of rises and support conditions.
