Design and Analysis of Air-Stiffened Vacuum Lighter-Than-Air Structures
Abstract
Lighter-than-air (LTA) systems have been developed for numerous applications and have taken several forms. Airships, aerostats, blimps, and balloons are all part of this family of systems, which uses Archimedes principle to achieve neutral and positive buoyancy in air by replacing an air volume with LTA gases. These lifting gases stiffen the otherwise compliant envelope structures, allowing them to sustain the pressure difference brought by the displaced air. The compliance of these structures is a byproduct of the weight requirement, materials and geometrical arrangement of which these structures are built from, typically resulting in dimensionalities that exhibit low or virtually non-existent in-plane bending stiffness. The former has constrained the development of LTA structures that utilize an internal partial vacuum, rather than a lifting gas, to achieve positive buoyancy, where the structure would be subjected to a pressure differential near atmospheric pressure.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1127564
Entities
People
- Ruben Adorno-rodriguez
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology