Re: Stephensons?

A wind tunnel would be great for steady state aerodynamic testing - but would do little for simulating the "real world" with all its variability - gusts - cross winds - snow accumulation or erosion, odd currents coming off other parts of a mountain.

Tom - most tents are probably designed with the sound engineering principal "hey - this looks kinda cool" behind them - you think it up - build a prototype - test it - get some other people to test it - then start selling it. You could use CAD software for the design (looking at some pole assemblies in "modern" tents I'm convinced some CAD jockey had far to much time on his/her hands!) - you could use stress analysis software to model the structure and figure out potential points of failure. You could even use computer based aerodynamic analysis to simulate loads coming from various positions -

Personally I've always been a fan of simplicity (odd, as am a software engineer, and our main goal is to complicate life so that we, the propeller heads of the world, continue to control and dominate ;=} ) - I like the old basic "A" frame tents (which seem to shed wind and snow really well) and pyramids (easier to set up than an "A" frame and probably better in the wind as well) -

From a marketing perspective, there is probably a correlation between percieved value and complexity of design - in other words - you can sell a yuppie a complex "gee whizz" tent for a lot more $$ than you can sell him a simple tent - 'cause he's going to be more apt to show off his complex tent to his idiot yuppie friends -

I'd apologize for calling yuppies idiots - but I'm really not in the mood today ...

Steve