"Four-Season-Arch" Luxury Camping Tent, USA
Customer Project
The Under Canvas company provides a unique opportunity for all-inclusive adventure glamping (glamorous camping). Established in 2009, the company has grown to include multiple luxury glamping resorts and customized events all over the country.
Owner |
Under Canvas Bozeman, Montana, USA www.undercanvas.com |
Structural Engineer |
Modular Structural Consultants, LLC. Plano, Texas, USA www.modularconsultant.com |
Model
Under Canvas safari-inspired tents look to reduce environmental impact while still delivering a luxurious camping experience. Operating in many beautiful and well-known national parks and monuments throughout the USA, these safari-inspired tents give campers the ability to sleep soundly, ready to explore nature by morning.
Structure
The Four-Season-Arch is a beautiful centerpiece tent for luxury camping resorts. It has a unique aesthetic shape. The tent may consist of one pod or multiple pods. Each pod has three equal sides. Each side is framed with a glulam timber arch, spanning about 26 ft, with an arch rise of approximately 10 ft, positioned at a slight tilt. The three side arches are held together with horizontal timber beams. Round posts, each measuring around 24 ft long, are placed at the center of the horizontal timber beams, forming the pointed tipi tent appearance at the center pod. Two 10-foot awning poles are positioned at the entry doors.
Heavy-duty membrane fabric covers the pod framing and forms the conical-dome tent shape. The tent access opening can be opened or closed with fabric as well. RFEM and the RF-FORM FINDING add-on module were used in the structural analysis and design of the structure, including determining the shape of the tensile fabric under applied prestress forces.
Determining the design wind load is challenging for the Four-Season-Arch's unusual structure shape. The only way to produce an accurate wind load for this tent is either to use actual wind tunnel testing or wind tunnel simulation software. RWIND Simulation by Dlubal Software was the program chosen to perform the wind analysis on the tent structure. RF-TIMBER AWC was used to design the tent wood structures according to American standards.
Keywords
Membrane structures Form-finding Tent structure Wind forces Wind simulation
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New
Wind Load Application Using RWIND 2
This article demonstrates wind load generation in RWIND 2 integrated with RFEM 6 for complete structural analysis and design.

Compared to the RF-FORM-FINDING add-on module (RFEM 5), the following new features have been added to the Form-Finding add-on for RFEM 6:
- Specification of all form-finding load boundary conditions in one load case
- Storage of form-finding results as initial state for further model analysis
- Automatic assignment of the form-finding initial state via combination wizards to all load situations of a design situation
- Additionally form-finding geometry boundary conditions for members (unstressed length, maximum vertical sag, low-point vertical sag)
- Additional form-finding load boundary conditions for members (maximum force in member, minimum force in member, horizontal tension component, tension at i-end, tension at j-end, minimum tension at i-end, minimum tension at j-end)
- Material type "Fabric" and "Foil" in material library
- Parallel form-findings in one model
- Simulation of sequentially building form-finding states in connection with the Construction Stages Analysis (CSA) Add-On
- Why do the results in a modal analysis differ between the initial prestress and the surface load?
- How do I apply wind load on members of open structures?
- Although I have modeled two identical structural systems, I obtain a different shape. Why?
- I want to create a mapped mesh for a circular hole plate. Is it possible to generate such a mesh in RFEM?
- How is it possible to make factorized combinations of a dead load in the context of form‑finding?
- It seems that the members stay not deformed after my RF‑FORM‑FINDING calculation. What did I wrong?
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Can I export my cutting pattern?
- How do I model a tent roof with two cone tips?
- How do I model a suspended membrane roof structure with line supports?
- I would like to calculate and design "flying structures." What do I need for this?
Programs Used for Structural Analysis