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The Dedmon Athletic Center at Radford University, Radford, Va., is known as “The Bubble” because of its air-supported membrane roof installed in 1981 by Birdair Inc. The roof outlasted its 20-year expectancy but still needed a retrofit in 2009. The recently completed composite membrane roof is the world’s first made of Tensotherm™ with Nanogel®, a fabric less than 50mm thick which quadruples the original roof’s thermal insulation value to R-12.
Nanogel, by Cabot Corp., is sandwiched between two layers of structural PTFE fiberglass membrane while maintaining translucency, allowing a through transmission of 3.5% natural daylight.