I remember seeing a program (I think it was on the discovery channel) a
year or two ago about a new type of dome that was invented. It was so
simple and cheap which I suspect may be the reason that it is so hard to
find on the net. All they used was an air pump, a big balloon, cement,
and rebar. As far as I can recall this dome started off with a layer of
rebar somewhat laid down across its center (imagine: draw a circle, then
put lines across the cir***ference creating almost a pie chart look- I'm
sure there is more to it) and then they add cement to top it off. They
let this layer dry thoroughly. They then added a big balloon (I don't
recall the material used) across the entire foundation. The next part I
am still a bit foggy about, but what they did was laid cement down over
top of the balloon (or maybe it was more rebar and cement...) then they
quickly topped it off with a layer of cheese cloth. Next they sprayed
the cheese cloth with water to keep the cement from cracking as they
filled the balloon with air... I recall them saying the pressure used
was equivalent to the puff off a cigarette because the balloon covered
such a large surface area of the cement. I don't remember exactly how
long it took for them to blow it up, but I think it was like, 4-8 hours,
maybe 12... then they left it to dry and it was finished within a couple
of days. They showed other versions of this with intersecting domes
that were massive, some 80+ feet tall... Again my memory is a big
blurry over this so I may have left some steps out on building this.
Ingenious, super efficient, materials are available almost everywhere
and it is extremely cheap, only a couple thousand dollars for materials.
If anyone knows the name of the inventor or a website or some way of
contacting him I would be very interested if you could help me find out!
My em@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
is: "ravenise"@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"shaw".ca" (no quotes)
Thank you!, take care.
Tyler.
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