Indian Oil Corporation, Greater Noida Tensile Structure

An oil-marketing depot or office needs covered outdoor space for a specific reason — a loading bay kept out of the rain, a covered area for vehicles or staff, a weather-protected working zone — and it needs it added without shutting the site down. A tensile canopy covers a big footprint on a light frame that goes up fast.

Ekra Decor delivered the structure as a turnkey job: survey and setting-out, 3D structural and membrane design, fabrication of the galvanised steel frame and the welded fabric, and installation and tensioning, over about 2,100 m² in roughly six weeks. The archive does not record exactly which area the canopy covers, so this page keeps that general.

An industrial canopy is designed around what moves underneath it. Columns go to the edges and out of the vehicle and forklift paths, and the membrane spans the working area overhead with the clear height set for the tallest vehicle or handling equipment expected to use it.

The fabric is form-found in 3D and pre-stressed into double curvature so it stays taut under wind uplift and drains the monsoon to defined points clear of the working area. Ekra Decor designs the steelwork to IS 800 and checks the structure for wind, rain and seismic loading to the applicable Indian codes, with the foundations sized against the uplift that governs a lightweight roof. On an oil-industry site the detailing is kept clean and the materials are specified for a long, low-maintenance life.

The steel is cut, welded and hot-dip galvanised in the workshop and the membrane is cut and high-frequency welded into panels off-site, so on-site work is limited to casting the foundations, erecting the frame and tensioning the membrane.

On an operational facility the work is fenced and sequenced around site traffic and activity, with completed areas handed back as they are finished. The canopy went up in about six weeks.

The IOCL site gained a large covered area that keeps vehicles, materials or staff out of the sun and the monsoon, added quickly and without stopping operations. It is a low-maintenance structure — periodic cleaning and a routine check of the frame and tensions.

Ekra Decor builds industrial canopies and covered yards for energy and logistics clients. See more finished work on the projects page, or read about tensile structures in the Noida area.