Mechanical characteristics of stratospheric airship envelope of vectran fibre-reinforced-laminated composite

Abstract

The mechanical characteristics of biaxial constitutive relationship of plain woven and fibre-reinforced-laminated composite envelopes directly determine the application security and reliability of a stratospheric airship. Based on a typical constitutive Peirce model and Serrated model of plain woven fabric, the structural components and biaxial-loading characteristics were studied for the composite envelope, and the slipping friction energy of warp and weft yarn bundles was also considered in the developed model. With the strain energy method and Castigliano's principle, the biaxial constitutive relationship of plain woven-laminated composite was proposed to combine with the micromechanics theory of laminated composites. Compared to the uniaxial/biaxial tensile tests and the scanning electron microscopy observation, the results showed a good agreement between the proposed model and the experimental data, thus verifying the accuracy of the constitutive relationship model.

Keywords:

• Fibre-reinforced composite
• Woven envelope
• Constitutive relationship
• Stratospheric airship