Stability of Lobed Superpressure Balloons During Ascent

摘要

It is known from large-scale experiments that the successful deployment of lobed superpressure balloons can depend on the used gas. Some balloons deployed properly during an inflation with air but failed to reach the desired equilibrium configuration for helium. Furthermore, depending on the desired flight altitude, a helium-filled balloon might or might not deploy properly. This paper investigates this phenomenon by studying the stability of lobed superpressure balloons during ascent. It is shown that wrinkles increasingly reduce the stiffness of balloons for a decreasing gas density and an increasing flight altitude such that clefts can develop at very low differential pressures in nearly fully inflated balloons.