Deployable structure systems: Meeting the needs for emergency and safety

Abstract

Mobility and strength are two basic requirements of protective shelters to meet the needs of disaster relief or protection of personnel and assets in military operation. Conventional protective structures especially for bullet or blaster resistant purposes are heavy and need long time to build. However, the development of deployable technology and high performance protective material leads to new development in this field. This paper focuses on the deployable technology. First, types of existing deployable structures, which are suitable for protective systems, are critically reviewed. Features such as structural efficiency, deployment speed and manpower requirement are evaluated. Then novel concepts of deployable protective shelters are proposed and some potential applications are highlighted.