Retractable Awning and Retractable Roofing: their designs, components, and Potential modifications for Iraqi climate conditions, Review

Retractable awning and retractable roofing have become widely used around the world because they give shading when there is no need to sunlight and it lets sunlight to pass through where there is a need. Most retractable awning and roofing use fabric to prevent the sunlight from getting through. Also, there are multiple mechanisms for deploying and retracting the awning and roofing that have been discussed in this review. Each mechanism has its pros and cons depending on size of place to be shaded besides the size of the space in which mechanism can freely move. The weather in Iraq is known to be harsh and temperature reaches about half the boiling point of water besides times of the sun is much and has high radiation. All these ambient conditions lessen fabric life. Also, the dust in Iraqi weather has been discussed because the dust badly influences on mechanism of awning and roofing, especially when mechanism contents some delicate pieces like small gears, roller bearing, delicate chain and small joints. Besides mechanism is exposed to rain which creates, with the accumulated dust, sludge restricting the motion and causing corrosion and rust. All those cons made the retractable awning not practical and not lasting long in these harsh conditions. So, there is a need to redesign an awning and roof using material that has less or no influence in this harsh weather besides simplicity and reliability should be both the main considerations in designs. But before going into designs, there should be reviewing of the main types of retractable awning and their ways of operation besides the main types of retractable roofing. Also, this review deals with non-fabric materials used as cover in retractable roofing and shows pros and cons of each material. From all that, it is discovered that the best material for Iraqi conditions is steel panel. So, this study deals with types of the steel panels based on its shape and the coating materials. Depending on that, it is observed that trapezoidal with pre-paint coated steel panel is the most available one in Iraqi markets besides it is most reliable to install. So, all improvised designs of awning and roofing in this study are based on this type of steel panel. Two proposed designs of awning are created in this review, one is basic design and the other is advanced design. The basic design is a steel panel mounted on solid frame and the latter is hinged to the wall, by rotating the steel panel with frame around the hinge, the amount of shading can be navigated. The advanced design is two basic awnings hinged together to be folded during the deployment. A preliminary simple mechanism is designed for folding. For the retractable roofing, the proposed retractable roof is based on sliding roof. The utilized parts and materials in this proposed roof are carefully selected to be durable and available in Iraqi markets. Simplicity and reliability are widely considered in design of this roof. Future work is to design mechanism and drivers of the retractable awning and roofing besides computing the associated stresses resulting in the motion under the influence of weight and wind.