Study of the Mechanical Properties of Near-Space Airship Envelope Material Based on an Optimization Method

Abstract

An optimal calculation method for the mechanical properties of near-space capsule materials was proposed. First, biaxial tensile tests under low tensile ratios were carried out on the envelope materials of a near-space airship. The experimental results showed that the values of the elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio, which are significantly affected by the warp and weft stresses, were not constant. Second, the elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio of the near-space airship were obtained by using the traditional calculation method, and the limitations of this method were discussed. Third, an optimal calculation model for the elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio of airship envelopes was proposed. The strain calculated by the proposed optimization model could be effectively correlated to the strain measured by the experiment. Then, through the user-defined subroutine of the finite element method and the elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio calculated by the proposed optimization, the strain of the finite element simulation was obtained. The average error between the simulation results and the experimental values was approximately 8.21% (warp) and 8.41% (weft). The proposed method can consider the nonlinear changes of the elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio of membrane material under different stress ratios and predict the force and deformation of the airship’s capsule more accurately, which is adaptable to engineering applications.