10.2514/6.2020-0479">
 

Towards feasible near-vacuum lighter-than-air envelopes via gossamer structures

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

1-6-2020

Abstract

Lighter-than-Air (LTA) envelopes that utilize a partial vacuum to achieve positive and/or neutral buoyancy have not been realized to this day primarily because commercially-available materials do not have the stiffness and strength required to replace internal gases in typical LTA envelopes. This paper explores the stiffening of gossamer structures with air to establish the potential feasibility of the concept in the context of vacuum LTA envelopes. The structural simulation techniques as well a specific design, refer to here as the Toroidal Sphere, are detailed. The authors found that fluid-structure and contact interactions in a geometrically nonlinear framework are fundamental for the simulation of the structural response of such designs. The Toroidal Sphere design along with the simulation techniques utilized serve as a baseline to develop geometrically-stable designs that limit stresses below those found in commercially-available polymeric membranes.

Comments

The full text of this conference paper is available via subscription or purchase through the DOI link on this page.

Co-author Ruben Adorno was an AFIT PhD candidate at the time of this article. (AFIT-ENY-DS-21-M-285, March 2021).

Conference Session: Innovative Concepts in Aircraft Structures I

Source Publication

AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS