Balloon-Skirt Airbags as Airdrop Shock Absorbers: Performance in Vertical Drops

Abstract

A set of 8 balloon-skirt airbags was obtained from Bertin & Cie, France. These airbags were designed to dissipate impact energy of the 8 m/s vertical impact due to parachute airdrop, and provide a ground slide feature to dissipate horizontal velocity. A test platform was designed and fabricated. Forty-three vertical drops were carried out, with mass ranging from 970 to 2390 kg and impact velocity from 5.5 to 8 m/s. Platform position and acceleration, and selected airbag pressures were recorded vs time for each drop; high speed motion picture coverage was provided for many drops. Variation of platform acceleration with load mass and impact velocity was determined for two choke sizes. The airbags exhibited premature skirt crush which would adversely affect ground slide. Average platform acceleration levels ranged from 3.6 to 8.7 G, but peak accelerations were generally twice as high, ranging from 6.8 to 17.7 G.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 1981
Accession Number
ADA118228

Entities

People

  • William Nykvist

Organizations

  • United States Army Soldier Systems Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Audiovisual Aids
  • Cameras
  • Films
  • Frequency
  • Impact Acceleration
  • Instrumentation
  • Kinetic Energy
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Mechanics
  • Motion Picture Photography
  • Motion Pictures
  • Photographic Materials
  • Photographs
  • Photography
  • Pressure Transducers
  • Recording Systems
  • Shock Absorbers

Readers

  • Aerial Delivery - Logistics and Supply Chain Management.
  • Explosive Engineering.
  • Mathematics or Statistics