Author(s)

C. Wielgosz, E. Leflaive & J.F. Dube

Abstract

An experimental and numerical study of inflated fabric panels is presented. The panels are made of two coated linen cloths connected by yarns in order to ensure a perfect flatness. They are submitted to medium pressures and to bending loads. The shape of the deformed panels is linear between points of loading. It seems therefore that the panels behave as tight yarns, but a yarn model gives valuable results on the deflection when the pressure is low, but very bad results for higher values of this pressure. A beam model is not suitable to calculate deflections because of less curvature, but gives a correct answer for the limit load of the panels. Modelling of these structures suppose computations with hypothesis of

Keywords