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Innovative floating support technologies for submarine cable landing
Published in Rodolfo Dufo-López, Jaroslaw Krzywanski, Jai Singh, Emerging Developments in the Power and Energy Industry, 2019
Zhigang Zhang, Yijun Dong, Zhoulong Yuan, Zhen Liu
The floating-pillow supporter could provide consistent buoyancy to assist transport and installation of the cables or steel tubes in the shallow water. The floating pillow is the most widely used buoyancy assistance device in foreign cable landing applications. There are mainly three types for this kind of supporter, as shown in Figure 5: twin-chamber type, twin-boom type, and vertical type. Most of these supporters are inflatable bags made of fabrics with high-strength PVC coating, which have high resistance to friction and ultraviolet rays and have passed certification tests. The decompression valves and inflation/deflation valves are always installed on the air bags.
Inflatable structures and digital fabrication
Published in Paulo J.S. Cruz, Structures and Architecture: Bridging the Gap and Crossing Borders, 2019
An Inflatable (pneumatic) or air-supported structure is a novel type of textile membrane shell structure. Oñate, 2005 gives a general description of inflatable structures and their unique set of features such as: lightweight, foldability, portability and their increase in popularity in the recent years for a wide range of applications. Inflatables are used in many fields such as civil engineering, architecture, aeronautic and airspace. Typical uses consist of permanent roofs (stadiums), shelters, temporary structures for recreational or disaster struck areas.
Reliability of inflatable structures: challenge and first results
Published in European Journal of Environmental and Civil Engineering, 2020
Jean-Christophe Thomas, Franck Schoefs, Colin Caprani, Benjamin Rocher
Air supported structures are often mono-membrane structures whose occupied volume is pressurised, which thereby enables the envelope to support its own weight and other external loads. In the case of air-inflated structures, the element is subjected to an internal pressure which makes it a structural member able to support various loads. This can be inflatable beams, inflatable mats, or assemblies of inflatable elements like cones, tubes, or tores. Double-membrane-type structures are part of this family. Globally, the term inflatable structures corresponds to this class of pneumatic structure. For hybrid structures, the structural elements and the occupied space are independently pressurised. Figure 1 presents two recent examples of air-inflated or inflatable structures: Ontario’s Celebration Zone Pavillon is a recent project built in 2015 (Jungjohann & Woodington, 2016), which sheltered the public during the festivities, and; the inflatable hangar of the aircraft Solar Impulse, which can be easily installed at each stage of its trip. These two examples show that pneumatic structures are good candidates to shelter people or goods over short or longer periods. Interest in this kind of structure originates on one hand in their prefabrication and much-reduced size before inflation, and on the other hand in their exceptionally light weight that reduces transport and installation costs. Moreover they are easy to fold and they keep their properties after several uses. Another aspect of these structures is the small value of the ratio of dead to service plus environmental loads. These characteristics make inflatable structures a powerful and sustainable concept to reduce transport emissions and mobilisation of big equipment and energy intensive resources in construction.