Wind analysis of an air-inflated membrane structure

摘要: Air-inflated structures are portable, very light structures with small folded/uninflated volume and with extremely short set-up and dismantling time. Air-inflated structures were built with larger and larger spans in the previous years. Since the building codes do not provide the pressure coefficients of membrane structures, normally they are determined by the help of wind tunnel tests or CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) calculations. In the course of the current research the pressure coefficients of a structure composed of six air-inflated arches were determined through wind tunnel tests. The main steps of the research were: a) The determination of the pressure coefficients of the structure by means of wind tunnel tests. The pressure coefficients were determined for different wind directions in the cases of a closed and an open set-up (structures with and without end walls). b) The nonlinear static analysis of the structure …