engleski

Tensairity, an Extra-Light Weight Structure for Airships

Heavy payload airships and non-conventional shape airships require a rigid keel to maintain their shape under loading. The keel increases the structural weight, decreasing the payload capacity of the airship. A potential solution to maintain a light structural weight is to apply Tensairity as structural elements for an airship keel. Tensairity is a novel lightweight structure, which consists of a reinforced inflatable beam. A first demonstrator was publicly presented in 2002 by Pedretti, Luchsinger et al., and consisted of a car bridge. Since then, the concept is under continuous development, principally in the civil engineering domain. In this chapter, the potential of applying Tensairity as structural elements for an airships’ keel has been assessed by comparing the weight of a Tensairity frame to the weight of an I-beam frame. It is significant to mention that we can find in literature the comparison of Tensairity beams and conventional beams weight, but the differences on loading conditions, type of structural element (frame instead of beam) and scale do not allow a correlation. After developing the necessary numerical model, a large Tensairity frame has been sized. We show that we can obtain an airship weight, which is eight times lower dimensioned against stress, strain and buckling. However, the buckling results are preliminary and should be validated experimentally. Considering the mentioned conclusions, we have identified Tensairity as a novel technology with large potential for the Lighter Than Air (LTA) vehicles application, making possible hull sizes and geometries, which are not possible to be constructed nowadays.

Tensairity ; Lighter than air (LTA) vehicles ; Lightweight structure

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