Appropriate constructions and materials for new lightweight building methods

摘要

Today’s modern membrane structures and other lightweight buildings can be used for mobileand/or adaptable, however also permanent buildings.They have proved over decades to be durable – among othersfor exhibitions and fairs, transportation buildings, cultural and religious events, shops, leisure facilities, sportsarenas and much more – last but not least for the soccer world cup in South Africa. Due to the lightness of textilestructures it is possible to obtain the largest spans without extra supports and to cover the hugest building volumes.Membrane structures are suitable both to meet today’s energy-saving thermal protection requirements by a numberof special measures and to fulfil acoustic requirements like sound-reflection or noise proofing increasinglysatisfying. Despite all evidence of their extraordinary abilities and obvious advantages lightweight structuresmade of textile materials and foils are still not used to the full range of their excellent properties. Therefore thiscontribution presents new, but also well-known materials such as foils, fibres, yarns and threads, coating andtop coats of fabrics, including open meshed fabrics and nets. There will be presented furthermore experimentswith special membrane materials and their applications in executed examples of membrane structures.