An automatic system for pressure control and load simulation of inflatable membrane structure.

Inflatable membrane structure employs flexible membranes as main constructive materials, as well as pressurized gas in the membrane envelope aiming to provide the bearing capacity and structural integrity. Therefore, the internal pressure control and load simulation method are very significant to estimate the structural behavior of inflatable membrane structure. This paper presents an automatic system for pressure control and load simulation of inflatable membrane structure, including a pressure control subsystem and a load simulation subsystem. For pressure control, internal pressure of inflatable membrane structure is controlled by switching the high-speed on/off valves which connect air compressor to the structure. For load simulation, wind pressure and wind suck loads, acting on membrane surface in the normal direction, are simulated by controlling the solenoid valves to allow the vacuum pumps to inflate air into or pump air out from the load simulation chamber which is closely connected to inflatable membrane structure with an airtight space. More importantly, the coupling control of two subsystems can be automatically carried out to simulate the inflatable membrane structure under resisting the varied wind loads. These above actions are automatically performed based on the control logic coded in software module. In order to estimate the proposed automatic system, the internal pressure control, load simulation and coupling control tests were performed on a square double-layer ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) cushion model. Control performance and accuracy of the proposed system are proved by analyzing the measured pressures. It is thus demonstrated that the proposed automatic system is considerably automatic, accurate, efficient and reliable for pressure control and load simulation of inflatable membrane structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]