Fatigue Damage Mechanical Model of the Envelope Material for Stratospheric Airships

As a major part of the stratospheric airship structure, the envelope material is used to contain lifting gas and keep the aerodynamic configuration. The main force on the envelope material comes from differential pressure between inside and outside the structure, which is cyclic stress because of the alternative temperature. Three different damage modes of the envelope material, including fracture damage of fabric yarns, cracking damage of resin matrix and functional membrane are investigated in this paper. A theoretical model to predict fatigue life of the envelope material under cycle load is developed base on the damage evolution properties of the material. The results indicates that the theoretical model can well predict the fatigue life. In addition, it can be seen from the results that the fracture of fabric yarns is the main damage modes for the material with off-axial angle of 0°and 90°, while the cracking damage of resin and functional membrane is the main damage modes for the material with other off-axial angles.