Structure
An inflatable building only requires pressurized air within the cavities of the walls and so does not require airlocks since the occupied interior of the building is at normal atmospheric pressure. Since a much lower volume of air is pressurized, inflatable buildings require less power for continuous operation.
The air contained within the walls of an inflatable building becomes a true structural part of the building. The membranes used in the construction of such buildings are typically less than 1mm thick, so the amount of membrane used compared to the volume of air contained within the walls is incredibly low (typically less than 0.5%). This makes inflatable buildings efficient in terms of the amount of raw materials required to construct them.
The small amount of material used in the construction of inflatable buildings makes them highly portable. When a building needs to be moved, the air can simply be allowed to escape enabling an entire building to be packed into a small volume compared to its inflated size. The building can then be transported easily to its new location and re-inflated.
Read more about this topic: Inflatable Building
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in its totality, in its structure: posterity discovers it in the stones with which he built and with which other structures are subsequently built that are frequently better—and so, in the fact that that structure can be demolished and yet still possess value as material.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
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—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)
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—Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)