Modern Technological Solution for Covering the Cylindrical Vault of the Nave during the Construction of the Church of St. Tikhon in St. Petersburg

Introduction. The article is dedicated to the history of the development and implementation of the project for the construction of the ceiling of the nave of the church of St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, at 17 Commune Street, St. Petersburg. The church was built and is under construction on an order of a local religious organization with donations from whoever cares to do this and church visitors. The original project envisaged the construction of an arched cylindrical vault above a masonry nave, which called for complex engineering solutions and considerable labor and financial costs. By October 2024, it became clear that construction in the traditional way would not enable the church to be consecrated, having completed this project in a short time and with limited funds. The aim of the study was to develop an alternative solution to the construction of arched brickwork with puffs on the short side of the nave of the temple.

Materials and Methods. Having considered the options available, we decided to make use of arched beams as stiffeners, which were supposed to take on some of the load, including from the strut. It was assumed that it was possible to replace the prestressed reinforcement of the upper row with a combined one making it possible to optimize the arch design. In order to identify the required parameters, loads were collected and the stress strain of the arch was calculated, including in the SCAD program provided it was at the operational stage. The reduction of stress zones is achieved by additional reinforcement with rods and clamps.

Results. The research enabled us to reduce costs while maintaining the structural rigidity of the arch. In accordance with the calculations, the formwork drawings have been developed. The process of transferring parameters from drawings to actual dimensions and concreting was meticulously organized by means of modern quality control tools at each stage. The installation of ready-made reinforced concrete structures turned out to be more technologically advanced and faster than a monolithic system.

Discussion and Conclusion. The brick vault project was successfully completed with minimal deviations involved. The support area of the structures and the height of the arch rise fully corresponded to the calculated values. The solution was found to have made it possible to considerably cut down the load on the base, increase the overall structural rigidity, while freeing the space under the dome from tightening, reduce construction times making it possible to meet the deadlines as well as to reduce the costs. The scientific novelty of using arches with a mixed reinforcement system is the simplicity of the design, the absence of the need to increase the cross-section of the truss elements and the possibility of using combined reinforcement.

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