Learning Forum

[Prince94]

Greetings,

I am working on designing small blimp made of polyurethane with 4 mil fabric thickness, the flat diameter is 1m, (diameter of the flat piece, two of which are sealed together to form a saucer shape) which can be inflated and wrinkles are formed on it's circumference (in form of pleats). as the actuators are also located at the same place, I want to assess it's effects (from actuators on blimp fabric, deformation/distortion in local area) to improve it's performance.

I also want to make a second iteration of more rigid blimp, and in order for that I would like to introduce rigid elements with fabric and assess if it helps in increasing the overall (and local where the actuators are placed in contact with blimp fabric) structure.

For structure, I tried performing static structural analysis with same pressure subjecting on it's inner and outer surface (indicating the blimp is fully inflated and at it's capacity) adding two actuators, and fixing one while applying force on the other to simulate yawing effect. but I would like to know if there is a better way to do it. also I don't have much knowledge in meshing thin shell elements, and I assume my mesh can also be improved to get better result.

Any help to get me started will be much appreciated.

I have added a screenshot of the static structural case where the green part represents the two actuators directly added with bonded connection on the blimp

[Ashish Khemka]

nnI do not have much idea on the topic but you may refer to the following papers using Ansys:nnnhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026412751930752XnnRegards,nAshish Khemkan