Construction of a Deployable Scissor Arch for Shelters

Transitional shelters - shelters which can be rapidly deployed and reconfigured afterwards - can offer a sustainable solution for disaster relief since they can be used for an immediate response and then can be repurposed to serve throughout the subsequent recovery and development phases. Deployable structures based on scissor elements offer an appealing structural system for this purpose, since they are lightweight and provide a high volume expansion after deployment. Toward a goal of developing transitional shelters comprised of scissor elements, a full-scale deployable scissor arch is constructed as a case study to gain knowledge on the manufacturing, assembly and deployment. The paper first presents design considerations related to the members, joints, boundary conditions, and implementation of passive cables as stiffening elements. In addition, the manufacturing and construction process is described. The structure weighs 0.6kN and exhibits a substantial volume expansion from 0.8m3 in its compact state to 65m3 in the deployed configuration. The result is a full-scale aluminium prototype of a scissor arch which can be deployed manually and is stable it its final deployed state. This research represents a preliminary step in investigating the viability of scissor structures as transitional sheltering solutions.