Cylindrical shed construction: the shell roof on the Jamin factory at Oosterhout, Netherlands

Abstract

The paper provides an overview of cylindrical shed reinforced concrete shells, a type of construction used primarily in industrial buildings. Like other types of shells, most cylindrical sheds were built between the end of World War II and the early nineteen sixties. The article reviews their characteristics and construction parameters based on contemporary studies and briefly documents some of the most prominent structures. The final chapter contains a detailed analysis of the design and construction of what, to the authors’ knowledge, is the largest such shell ever erected. Built for the Jamin factory at Oosterhout, Netherlands, this shed was the object of an ingenious destructive study on a scale model conducted in 1955 at Madrid’s Central Construction Materials Laboratory.