Case Study: Curved Trusses
Guest Hospital, Dudley
Double curved lightweight lattice joists from Metsec Lattice
Division provided the roof solution for a hospital block in the
West Midlands.The single storey building, which has provided additional outpatient treatment facilities at the Guest Hospital in Dudley, is laid out as a semi-circle with a wave-shaped, curved roof, creating an unusual structural challenge.
Metsec supplied 16 lattice trusses spanning 12.65m to form the main part of the roof plus three 7.2m span trusses to create the entrance to the building. The roof was designed to rise away in
a wave shape from the entrance so the main 12.65m span trusses
are 0.4m deep at the shallow end, rising to 3.8m at the centre of
the semi-circle. The top chord of these principal trusses follows
an inverse cubic parabola curve to create the wave shape and incorporates both a 38m radius on the shallower part and an
18m radius to the deeper section. Single span Metsec purlins
were fixed on top of the trusses to carry the roof covering.