The design and engineering of Membrane Structures is a specific field within the Engineering profession. Tensile Membrane Structures are unique in their design within certain constraints the design of a Tensile Membrane Fabric Structure is only limited by the designer’s imagination.
Catering for Free Form Design
Often the free form design of a tensioned roof structure results in canopy profiles that do not fall within the guidelines of international engineering codes. In successfully engineering tensile structures Light Weight Structures utilizes linked Computational Fluid Dynamics, Finite Element Analysis and Form Finding software.
Designing to Code
Light Weight Structures has developed a Fluid Structural Interface (FSI), which is a process to pressure map from the CFD software to the FEA model. Furthermore in developing optimum design configurations for tensile structures the company has written custom calculation sheets to streamline the structural calculations used to determine support members, concrete foundations, and connection details. Our Calculation sheets cover the following codes:
- Australian Code
- American code
- British Code
- Euro Code
Project Applications
Light Weight Structures proven capability in the design, engineering and installation of tensile fabric structures is applied to projects including Sporting and Recreational facilities, Undercover Bowling Structures, Commercial Shaded Car Parking, Covered Walk Ways, Custom Umbrella’s, Shade Sails and Mining applications in PTFE (Teflon Coated Fabric), PVDF (Vinyl) and HDPE (Shade Fabric).
Our Engineering Services:
- Design concept realization
- Superimposed CAD Model on photograph
- Computer Rendered Images
- Rain mapping
- Shadow diagrams
- Scale Models
- Fabric cutting patterns
- Engineering of the membrane canopy
- Steel and concrete engineering
- Engineering design inclusive of reaction report
- Engineering drawings (DA drawings)
- Workshop drawings
- Laser part drawings
- Detailed connection design
- Cable schedules