Advantages and Disadvantages
There are some advantages and disadvantages as compared to conventional buildings of similar size and application.
Advantages:
- Considerably lower initial cost than conventional buildings
- Lower operating costs due to simplicity of design (wholly air-supported structures only)
- Easy and quick to set up, dismantle, and relocate (wholly air-supported structures only)
- Unobstructed open interior space, since there is no need for columns
- Able to cover almost any project
- Custom fabric colors and sizes, including translucent fabric, allowing natural sunlight in
Disadvantages:
- Continuous operation of fans to maintain pressure, often requiring redundancy or emergency power supply.
- Dome collapses when pressure lost or fabric compromised
- Cannot reach the insulation values of hard-walled structures, increasing heating/cooling costs
- Limited load-carrying capacity
- Conventional buildings have longer lifespan
Read more about this topic: Air-supported Structure
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