This document deals with the gridshells built by the Navier laboratory in the last ten years. The numerical conception is developed, from the draft made by architects up to the final structure. To design a gridshell several ...

A common challenge for architects and engineers in the development of structurally efficient systems is the generation of good structural forms for a specific set of boundary conditions, a process known as form-finding. ...

The optimal use of materials is highly necessary and a key issue for the near future. World’s current demand on resources and waste production has an enormous impact on the environment, which will even dramatically increase ...

In the present demand-driven market, hen time plays a key role, the adopting of a flexible strategy easy to implement may be the answer to create an architecture that meets all requeriments. The adaptation with membranes ...

The lack of unified verification approaches and standards like the Eurocodes for various materials is a limiting factor to further propagation of architectural membranes. This paper will discuss the possibilities and ...

NURBS models are used in the architectural design to develop new geometries. This document describes the process from the pure geometry to a feasible membrane shape, which is still compatible with the design intend of the ...

In this paper, the eXtended Updated Reference Strategy is presented. Starting from the established Updated Reference Strategy all related issues, which are involved for this methodology, are identified. It will be shown ...

This paper presents recent advances in the field of multilayer textile cladding systems with a focus on the latest findings. Primary topics are the special characteristics of textile materials in building envelopes in ...

This paper reviews the advantages of lightweight tensioned coated fabrics and foils applied to the existing building sector in order to improve the insulating/shading performance of the external building envelope. The paper ...

This paper describes the use of BATenso Textile Façade framing system and its application to the Hotel Oasis refurbishing, for aesthetical and climatic improvement.

The following proposal for a “tensile structure” is originated by the need to generate a better use of the central courtyard of the school Enrique Pardo Parra, by using a textile cover which protects the 700 students from ...

The cutting patterning is an essential part of the engineering process in textile architecture. In the past it was very costly and time-intensive if the waste of material was to be minimized. Nowadays we have fast or even ...

Several types of tensile loaded foundations for structural membranes ith different materials, geometries, menaufactures, installations, efficiencies and depths er studied. As a aresult, a better understanding of the uplift ...

The thin flexible composite membrane stretched on the frame of space solar array should be capable of withstanding the mechanical loadings exerted on the structure during the delivery to orbit and deployment. Nonlinear ...

Membrane structures have received a wide range of attention in applications of large-scale spacecrafts, such as inflated wing, light-than-air (LTA) airship and membrane antenna reflector, and so on. These spacecrafts need ...

The paper aims to highlight the design and building processes and the interface between the different disciplines, during the design of the pneumatic envelope of the Winter Garden in Verona. Especially the step between the ...

This paper presents a novel BIPV/T ETFE cushion with the potential for solar energy utilization. An experimental mockup mainly composed of a three-layer ETFE cushion and two amorphous silicon photovoltaic panels (PVs) was ...

Wind-induced ovalling vibrations were observed during a storm in October 2002 on several empty silos of a closely spaced group consisting of 8 by 5 thin-walled silos in the port of Antwerp (Belgium). The purpose of the ...

This work is focused on the evaluation of the performance of a small-scale inflatable, or plug, placed in a confined space provided by a circular rigid pipe as a way to contain the propagation of floods. The rigid pipe is ...

There are approximately 337 highway tunnels and 211 rail transit tunnels in the United States; many of these tunnels are beneath bodies of water.1 Every day, more than 11.3 million passengers in 35 metropolitan areas and ...

This document provides information and instructions for preparing a Full Paper to be included in the Proceedings of STRUCTURAL MEMBRANES 2013 Conference.

As part of the international exhibition ‘Bauausstellung’ IBA 2013 in Hamburg, Germany, architects from KVA MATx team and engineers from Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering have developed an integral energy harvesting ...

This study deals with the methods of architectural design of structures made of textile membranes. We consider the problem of form finding of membranes strained by rigid skeletons and cables installed along the free edges ...

In this paper we propose an example of a thin geodesic spherical dome composed by a lattice of inflatable interacting beams. The geometry of the lattice is determined by searching for the minimum variation of the characteristic ...

The paper analysis static load bearing capacity and dynamic properties of two examples of inflatable beams, the membrane material selected for the first example is the ETFE coated fabric, and the membrane material of the ...

The failure of balloons made of Linear Low Density PolyEthylene (LLDPE) is investigated. The chosen film is 38 µm thick StratoFilm 420, currently used for the NASA Super-Pressure balloons [1]. The visco-elastic behaviour ...