CHALLENGES IN DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT OF ENVELOPE MATERIALS FOR INFLATABLE SYSTEMS

The state of the art material and technologies available for the flexible envelope materials for Inflatable systems have been emphasized in this paper. Inflatables such as Aerostats, Radome and Floats and their material property requirements have been discussed. The paper throws some light on the basis of selection of raw materials such as fabric substrate, coating polymer, grades of films for specific applications, based on their property mix. An overview of different sealing techniques used for fabrication of inflatable structures such as heat, RF, adhesive has been discussed along with coating and lamination techniques suitable for manufacturing such fabrics.