My camp awning; rigging and wind (pics)

[melodiousdirge]

Hello all, I've designed and started building an awning to share with my campmates this year. It is a crescent shape and will be attached to the side of my dome.

The inside edge will attach to the side of my dome at about 10' off the ground, and the outside crescent will be supported by 5 poles.

Now, looking at the size of this thing, I am worried that 5 poles won't be enough, and that I probably need to reinforce the tarp with ropes along the edges and lines of tension between the poles and the dome. Maybe even plan on putting rigid struts in the edges of the tarps to help combat flapping. I've never set anything like this up before and I'm thinking it will be a flapping nightmare if it's not done just right.

I'm also considering cutting some "C" shaped cutouts in the fabric to let the wind through, but I'm not sure if the benefit is outweighed by weakening the tarp.

Does anyone have experience with awnings on the playa?

[melodiousdirge]

I'm tempted to put posts mid span on the two 24 foot edges, as that seems like a long unsupported span, but I don't want to overconstrain it, so it's got tight spots and flappy spots. I was really hoping to just rely on tensegrity in that edge but I'm just using 3/8" general purpose rope and 1" ratchet straps... no steel cables and winches. Not sure if a span that long is just asking for trouble.

[melodiousdirge]

I'm really open to suggestions here. I want to start with the grommets and edging today. There's gotta be some eplayans with some applicable experience.

[FIGJAM]

The radius is confounding my thought process.

[melodiousdirge]

Haha, me too! Unfortunately I had this idea and grew immediately attached to it despite my engineering concerns. I think once I do the edges, the radius will actually become 4 straight sides, each about 13-14 feet long. I may put 10 foot lengths of EMT in each edge to help with the flapping.

My current sort of rigging plan is to lace the inner radius to a piece of steel or a 2x4 or something and lash that to my dome. Then there will be radial ropes running down the edges and seams to the 5 poles along the radius, and each pole will have 2 guy straps putting tension on the ropes/tarp. It just leaves a pretty vast expanse of tarp supported by nothing but tight ropes.

[melodiousdirge]

I'm also trying to design it so that the failure of one or two attachment points doesn't bring the whole damn thing down... which is a bit of a challenge with a tensegrity type arrangement.