Cable structure families
Steel structures - Cable structures

In practice, these solutions are only encountered in structures supporting roofs. They consist in placing load-bearing cables, subject to distributed vertical or quasi-vertical loads, anchored in the lateral edges and providing direct support for the infill elements (trays, panels, slabs, etc.), which in turn support the waterproofing. The permanent load constituted by this assembly hardly exceeds around 35 daN/m², which is much lower than a normal, let alone extreme, wind load. It is therefore advisable to :

• to prevent the occurrence of a resultant uplift, unthinkable for a roof and its supporting structure; this is the purpose of dead weight ballasting, usually in concrete, cast in situ, or prefabricated and keyed;