Deformation Evaluation Due to Poisson's Ratio Variation of Coated Fabric for Airship Envelope

Abstract

To target to evaluate the deformation due to only Poisson’s ratio variation of coated fabric for airship envelop, series biaxial extension tests were carried out for a particular envelop Uretek3216 and the mechanical property parameters were calculated accordingly from the plain composite theory. On the basis of elastic engineering theory, three typical cases of tension ratio 1:1, 1:2 and 1:1~1:2 were proposed for evaluation on Poisson’s ratio variation, which is cruciform specimen, inflatable fabric beam and streamline airship. Parametric analysis was carried out for each case through numerical simulation. And the geometry dimension effect was also investigated with scaled model. The significant deformation variation of airship is found from only Poisson’s ratio variation, Poisson ratio variation is necessary to be considered for accurate deformation predication of large flexible airship. The presented work is valuable to numerical analysis and engineering design for non-rigid airship structures.