Silchar Airport, Assam Tensile Structure

A terminal forecourt canopy has a clear job: give passengers a continuous covered route from the building to ground transport, on a frontage that is fully exposed to the weather, without narrowing the kerb or filling the forecourt with columns. At Silchar the monsoon makes that cover close to essential for much of the year.

Ekra Decor’s scope covered the structure end to end — survey and measured layout, 3D membrane form-finding and structural design, fabrication of the steelwork and the membrane panels, and on-site erection and tensioning.

The forecourt has to stay driveable and walkable, so the roof is carried on a line of columns set back from the kerb, with the membrane and its steel cantilevering forward over the walkway and the first vehicle lane. That keeps the frontage open and the pedestrian route column-free.

The membrane is form-found in 3D and built from double-curved panels, which pre-stress the fabric so it stays rigid under wind uplift and channels rain to defined points rather than sheeting off the front edge onto passengers. In a very high-rainfall location the fall and the drainage are sized for a heavy monsoon. As standard, Ekra Decor designs the steel to IS 800 and takes wind, rain and seismic actions to the applicable Indian codes, with the foundations checked for uplift and overturning.

The steel is cut, welded and hot-dip galvanised in the workshop and the membrane panels are cut and high-frequency welded off-site, while the foundations are cast at the terminal. On-site work is then limited to erecting the frame, hanging the panels and tensioning the membrane.

A working terminal on a compact shared site means tight coordination — lifts, deliveries and the work zone all planned around passenger movement and airport security access — and the canopy is handed over as a finished structure.

Silchar Airport gained a covered forecourt and walkway that keeps passengers dry between the terminal and their transport, in a part of the country where that matters more than most. It is a durable, low-maintenance structure suited to the climate.

Ekra Decor builds forecourt and walkway canopies for transit and institutional clients; see also the Terminal 2 arrivals canopy at IGI Airport, Delhi. More finished work is on the projects page, or read about tensile structures in Silchar.