Roof Truss Assemblies
For the World's Largest Exhibit Hall

When completed in October 2002, the Dallas Convention Center will offer more than a million square feet of exhibit area.  A highlight of this facility will be the 203,000 square-foot exhibit hall, the largest column-free singular exhibit hall in the world.

BendTec fabricated two roof truss assemblies for  382 ft spans to support the roof of this exhibit  hall.  These truss assemblies are spaced 210 feet apart and will support a roof area of nearly 4.4 acres

The main arches of each truss assembly are are 60 ft apart.  They are made from 48" O.D. pipe and cover a span of over 382 ft with a height of over 61 ft..

The arc segments for the arches are induction bent using special tooling for long radius bending  developed by BendTec.  The bend radii vary from 297 to 467 ft

The trusses are fabricated from pipe (48" to 24" O.D.) and square HSS 12x12

The complex intersections at the upper corners of the truss are made with 5 ft diameter spheres constructed from 60" O.D. x 2½" thick hemispherical heads.

The arches and the main spans will each be assembled in the field from nine shop fabricated segments the end trusses each will be assembled from two shop fabricated segments

Images of the Fabrication Process

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