Tearing Behaviors of Flexible Fiber-Reinforced Composites for the Stratospheric Airship Envelope

Tearing behaviors of the envelope material is important for the stratospheric airship because it directly decides the service life of the airship. Uniaxial tensile tests of the specimens with different initial damage were performed to study the tear propagation properties of a new kind of envelope material for the stratospheric airship. A Matlab program was developed to simulate the mechanical properties in the tensile process. The interaction forces between warp and weft yarns were considered, and the yarns in the transition region between deformed region and non- deformed region were assumed as hinges in the simulation. It is discovered that the interaction factor, which represents interaction force between different components of the material, and the frictional coefficient between warp and weft yarns are the crucial factors for the tensile curves of the material. The tear strength and the damage mode of the envelope material are determined by the number of the cutoff yarns and the declination of the initial cracks, respectively.