Flame Retardant Rope/Fishing Net & Rigging of Such

[Dave m]

could relatively thin steel rod be used between the four corners, at the top? so creating four posts that look as if they have rope strung between them but in fact the edge "rope" is a solid bar?

Maybe I have misunderstood?

 

This is assuming that the system only has to support itself.

[Jivemaster]

Supporting the net and the electrical wiring I suspect that the netting could need a 5m rigging height to allow for some sag. This means that there will be a significant side load on the tops of the supports being poorly supported. Not every venue will have 5m free height.

 

I still fancy the idea of a forest of standard lamps, maybe of different heights.

[kerry davies]

I must have misread, a catenary system will have far too much loading to work in any way, I envisioned solid top bars to suspend net and cabling. There is a reason that telephone poles carrying lightweight wires need stay wires to counter the direction of "pull".

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

Archimedes

If you get taller poles to give you clearance as Jive suggests the scaff will simply bend more, it isn't that rigid. If you haven't got top bars then standard lamps are the best aesthetic solution.

[indyld]

I must have misread, a catenary system will have far too much loading to work in any way, I envisioned solid top bars to suspend net and cabling. There is a reason that telephone poles carrying lightweight wires need stay wires to counter the direction of "pull".

 

Quite. This is the reason I've ruled out a recently offered solution doing a similar thing with 3 metre standards. As stated, solid (invisible black?) bars across the top (or in our case, the upright poles being taken all the way to the roof) would create the structure. I was being a little obtuse, as a tensile line between two tank traps needs a lot of additional 'something' to do anything other than fall over. That something needs to take potentially significant loads off the poles and I would argue in many cases would just be unworkable.

 

However, I may have also misread the planned design idea.

 

On a related note, a student designer of ours once used a lot of dangling bare bulbs, positioned in a similar way using a black net under tension - it's certainly a good way of getting the spacing. However that was fixed into a steel roof but be aware that even lightweight pendant fittings, two core PVC flex and such adds up quickly and puts a lot of load on the net fixings. You can spread the individual point loads by tying the net off along a bar at close intervals and consider putting in additional pick ups across the span to help.