Multi-Story Air-Supported and Fluid-Inflated Building Structures by Jens G. Pohl

A less revolutionary structural alternative consists of one or more columns that are internally pressurized with water, air, or a granular material. A prototype multi-story air-supported building constructed as a student project by the author at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia is described in detail.

The structural design, fire protection, water and sanitary services implications, airlock entrance and exit facilities, thermal characteristics, construction sequence, comparison with orthodox building costs, and general safety considerations are discussed. Floors are suspended from the roof, which is directly supported by the ambient internal air pressure.

The entire building acts as a column with a circular cross-section and a lightweight flexible membrane wall that is surrounded by a network of diagonal and horizontal cables. In multi-story air-supported buildings the internal building environment is maintained at a pressure that normally does not exceed twice atmospheric pressure, so that the physiological impact of a hyperbaric environment are minimized. Several variants of such building structures are examined in detail. The internal fluid pressure greatly increases structural efficiency by converting columns, floors and roofs into lightweight tension structures. It explores the use of air and liquid pressure as the principal structural element of multi-story buildings.

This book is about a very different kind of architecture than the buildings we see around us at the beginning of the 21st Century. Whereas the initial focus was on lightweight vertical structures such as air-supported multi-story buildings with flexible plastic membrane enclosures and pressurized thin-walled columns with rigid metal walls, the new research has centered on lightweight horizontal structures. Since the first publication of this book on multi-story pneumatic and fluid-inflated building structures in 2013 the author has continued research into extensions of the same principles to large span floors and roofs.

Multi-Story Air-Supported and Fluid-Inflated Building Structures by Jens G. Pohl