Dual Parachute Swamp Cooled Dome

[sevenian]

Hello everyone!

My group is bringing out a 24' dome and we're looking at using two parachutes along with several swamp coolers to cover and cool it.

A light colored outer parachute secured to the outside of the dome, and a dark colored inner parachute hung from the inside of the dome.

Our thinking is that we can vent the outer parachute to allow air circulation between the two parachutes, and if we hang the inner parachute low enough so it's parallel with the floor we can reduce the volume of air that we need to humidify.

Has anyone tried this or a similar approach?

We already understand that this won't be waterproof, we're mainly aiming for cool during the day.

Thanks,
Teddy

[GreyCoyote]

It will work, but not nearly like you think it will. Mostly that topmost chute will be collecting hot air. Even if you get it to breath (holes, or an open area on the top), you still wont be happy with it compared to a "real" cover. Parachutes really catch the wind. They do poorly as a cover, especially on low-frequency domes (and yours would be a 3V-type I think, which is still technically a low-freq dome). All you will do is trap hot air inside between the layers.

But it should be better, nominally, for shade than a single layer. On the playa you want "black shade", and two layers like this will be better at blocking visible light. how it blocks UV and IR is anyones guess.

Can you make a fitted cover out of silver or white tarp material? If you want it, I can send you the math you need to generate the pattern. This is a 5/8 3V dome, right?

[Eric]

GreyCoyote touched on it, but I want to reinforce the fact that you absolutely need to have wind-vents in both parachutes. The wind can not only get up to 70+mph, it can also generate "micro-bursts" that can just shred a parachute. I know from experience - we had a new parachute in 2006, with wind-vents, and a micro-burst hit our area & shredded it (and knocked down part of recycle camps dome). You really want something as sealed as possible to use the swamp cooler, and I'm not sure parachute is it.

This is our brand new parachute after the micro-burst. You can see one of the surviving wind-slits just about dead-center on the left side of the picture:

BM0610.jpg

[GreyCoyote]

Sorta looks like the Lost Dutchman after a hurricane.