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Eero Saarinen TWA Flight Center Shell Roof
4-lobed doubly-curved cantilevered reinforced concrete wing shell roof (72 × 52 m, t = 140 mm) supported on 4 sculpted Y-shaped piers with groin edge ribs.
Eero Saarinen's landmark TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport embodies expressionist structural engineering, featuring four sweeping concrete shells that form a dynamic bird-in-flight silhouette. The roof structure spans 72 m by 52 m, tapering from 1.0 m at the central skylight spine down to just 140 mm across the outer cantilevering wings, resting entirely on four massive sculptured Y-piers. WebCAE evaluates long-term dead load cantilever deflections, thermal and wind effects on the dramatic overhangs, vibration modes, and shell buckling safety.
1. Geometry & FEA Mesh
- •Geometry: 4 distinct doubly-curved shell lobes (two front main wings spanning 72 m, front visor beak, and rear entrance shell) covering 72 × 52 m with 14 m roof rise.
- •Shell discretization: 576 MITC4 shell quad elements (thickness t = 140 mm to 350 mm) following parabolic double curvature.
- •Ribs & piers: 256 frame beam elements defining the 4 sculptural inclined Y-piers, perimeter edge stiffening beams, and central skylight spine arches.
- •System size: 633 nodes, 256 beam elements, 576 shell quads, 3,774 total DOFs with complete continuity between shell edges and arch ribs.
2. Loads & Boundary Conditions
- •Fixed boundary restraints (all 6 DOFs) at the 4 foundation footings of the sculpted Y-piers (z = 0).
- •Self-weight of reinforced concrete (E = 30 GPa, ν = 0.20, ρ = 2,400 kg/m³) with load multiplier 1.0.
- •Snow and wind suction loads applied as uniform vertical pressure (-1.5 kPa) across the cantilevered wing lobes.
3. Simulation Results & Findings
- ✓Maximum vertical cantilever wingtip displacement |u| = 518.9 mm located at the extreme tip of the port and starboard wings.
- ✓Fundamental natural frequency f₁ = 0.85 Hz corresponds to symmetric flapping of the long-span cantilever wing shells.
- ✓Linear elastic buckling factor λ₁ = 11.8 confirms adequate safety against localized wing skin buckling under full combined gravity load.
WebCAE gives architects and structural designers immediate insight into large-cantilever shell structures, predicting wingtip deflections, rib bending moments, and dynamic flutter frequencies directly in the browser.
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