Tensile Sail Shade

The Sail Shade is an attractive and fashionable canopy shape which is technically known as a hypar. Hypar (short for hyperbolic paraboloid) is one of the classic tensile fabric forms with the fabric attached at two high points and two low points to create a three dimensional flying shape.

This canopy shape can be very stable and durable but needs to be under high tensile loads in order to avoid the fabric flapping, fabric damage or rain water ponding. All of these issues can cause a canopy of this shape to fail under UK weather conditions. You can see from the drawing below that the Aura Tensile Sail Shade has four tripod legs to ground which allow us to achieve the tensile loads required for maximum stability and durability of the structure.

We take care to advise our customers on the difference between this tensile fabric sail shade structure, which is permanent and waterproof, and those that are simply tensioned structures. A tensioned sail shade structure will usually use a mesh fabric (not waterproof) to provide shade and avoid rainwater ponding, but will still have issues with snow ponding and will not have the tensile strength to withstand high winds.

Please refer to our comprehensive canopy buyer’s checklist to help you to specify the canopy that best suits your needs and make a fair comparison between different potential suppliers.

Tensile Sail Shade Key Features

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