Concrete Canvas Shelters
“Concrete Cloth’s groundbreaking flexible cement impregnated fabric technology allows it to be quickly and easily moulded and set into shapes. “With the simple addition of water, Concrete Cloth makes it possible to create safe, durable, non-combustible structures for a wide range of commercial, military and humanitarian uses.
With the simple addition of water, this innovation is especially remarkable for enabling the construction of rapidly deployable shelter and food storage structures in disaster relief situations.
Concrete Canvas Shelters (CCS) are rapidly deployable hardened shelters that require only water and air for construction. They have two major advantages over a conventional tented shelter. From an Operational perspective, CCS enable a hardened structure from day one of an operation. They provide much better environmental protection, increased security and vastly improved medical capability.
They have a design life of over 10 years, whereas tents wear out rapidly and must then be replaced. CCS are a one stop solution, saving effort and cost over the lifetime of medium to long term operations. The key to CCS is the use of inflation to create a surface that is optimised for compressive loading. This allows thin walled concrete structures to be formed which are both robust and lightweight.
They consist of a revolutionary cement based composite fabric (Concrete Cloth) bonded to the outer surface of a plastic inner which forms a Nissen-Hut shaped structure once inflated. A 25sqm CCS can be deployed by 2 people in less than 1 hour and is ready to use in only 24 hours. Their compressive structure has been modelled to be covered with sand or earth (berming) to provide protection and insulation.
The concrete shells have good thermal properties. When buried they provide excellent insulation and a very large thermal mass. They are far more durable than tenting with a minimum design life of 10 years. The sealed plastic inner of a CCS, means it can be delivered sterile. Concrete Cloth is a ceramic and will not burn. Each shelter is lined with a flame retardant fibre reinforced polyethylene inner with a B1 (DIN 4102-01 05/98) fire rating.
CCS can be fitted with a combined forced air / inflation unit and decontamination module to provide full spectrum CBRN protection. The hard shell and lockable doors of a CCS provide a level of security not possible with soft skinned structures, protecting stores, equipment and personnel. They provide all the benefits of a permanent structure without the associated cost and time delays.”
