An inflatable building is a structure constructed using two layers of membrane connected together, typically using spars made from the same material. The cavity formed between the layers is pressurized with air producing a rigid structural element which allows large span structures to be achieved. The key difference between air-supported buildings and inflatable buildings is that air-supported buildings require airlocks at all the access points to prevent air being lost when doors are opened since the entire occupied space of the building is pressurized.
Famous quotes containing the word building:
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)