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High Tech Pop Up Shelter Could Save Your Life

shelter

If you’re into outdoor winter sports like snowmobiling or back country skiing, a team of students from the Royal Danish Academy came up with a shelter idea which could save your life. Even if you manage to get stranded under extreme Arctic conditions.

Shelter inspired by nature

You don’t have to be someone competing in the Iditarod to appreciate the advanced shelter design that these research students crafted. But, if you are in the annual sled dog race, you’ll definitely want one along.

The thought of freezing to death is is enough to fill even the bravest adventurers with dread. Emergency survival in sub-zero temperatures is much easier thanks to their design.

What they came up with is a pop-up igloo “inspired by polar bears.” The “origami” style skin of their lightweight shelter is designed to “trap snow and use it as a natural insulator.”

Extreme cold climate critters like polar bears provided some clues. They factored in the physics of snow caves and traditional Inuit igloos. Engineers everywhere know that snow can be a much better building material than it is a burden. As long as you don’t need to shovel the driveway.

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The problem with building an igloo is the time it takes to make the blocks. Time can be a life or death factor in frigid temperatures.

Anyone can dig into a snow bank but finding one that won’t collapse and kill you in your sleep isn’t as easy as it sounds. An ideal emergency shelter can be carried in a pack and set up in moments. That’s what they came up with. It’s been field tested in Alaska.

A 66-degree difference

Designers of the shelter tried it out in Alaska and determined that when they packed it up with a cover of snow about 15 inches thick, the inside could hold an average of 66.6°F difference in temperature from the outside. By comparison, an ordinary “winter” rated tent only holds about a 23.4°F difference.

Polar bears have fur made of hollow hairs. The air gap adds insulation. To mimic that, they used Mylar to create snow catching pockets that are reflective on the inside, reflecting the heat back at occupants. Arctic safety officials are considering strategically placing the igloos “along checkpoints and hiking routes, where they could be deployed in seconds when needed.

While it may look flimsy, the shelter design can easily withstand a blizzard. The harder the wind blows, the more firmly it anchors itself down. They found out that anyone up to 154 lbs can stand on top of the frame without it collapsing.

That’s because the “internal fiberglass lattice structure is connected and deploys simultaneously with the origami outer shell.” The pop-up igloo was “recently awarded Winner Of The Year at the Design Educates Awards in the Product Design category.

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Let’s say you’re lost. “Little visibility, no cell phone coverage and sub-zero temperatures. Hypothermia is a serious threat, and help could be hours away.” This shelter works by harnessing the “extreme conditions to its advantage, rather than fight against them.

In gale force winds, “the aerodynamic water droplet form naturally anchors the shelter to the ground while dispersing wind forces.” Not only that, at “micro scale, local level turbulence is created within the origami pockets, encouraging snow to naturally build up in blizzard like situations, thereby creating a natural insulation and protection layer.

What do you think?

Written by Mark Megahan

Mark Megahan is a resident of Morristown, Arizona and aficionado of the finer things in life.

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