Is there any software tools available that can model, simulate and also perform analysis of inflatable structures? I couldn't find any non-proprietary software that could do the job. Thanks in advance
It seems counter productive to have them attached to your sides equipment, almost like saying drop your bombs here.
I was thinking of building something and using tubes of open space in an inflatable to make the inflatable have beams of air. I then want to pump closed cell foam through the openings so that the foam will harden and the air won't need to be in the tubes anymore to stay hard. I figure this should keep the structure solid and be easy to put together. Anyone know of products or things already using this method? If there isn't, do you have ideas or thoughts on this? I plan to use this concept to make insulated solid walls for a houseboat so that the walls can be insulated, strong, and put together quickly.
Hello! I had a question about the math behind the big inflatable slides you often see at city fairs and festivals.
What I was wondering is how someone would design for the inflated structure to hold the weight of a person. It seems to me like the volume of the structure is fixed and the fan keeping it inflated keeps it at a relatively constant pressure, so constant volume/pressure can be assumed.
Since pressure is in units of force/area, would the pressure needed to support one person on the slide just be:
slide.pressure = m.person*g / person.footprint.area?
Also, this is just something I started wondering about today while I was driving home and saw an inflatable slide. It is not a homework problem or anything related to school.
So I was reading through this research paper from a company that works on behalf of nasa a lot.
It details an inflatable structure with some excellent insulation properties. Guessing at the material cost, it might be cheaper then conventional housing.
Throw some cheap vinyl cutters into the mix and you have a nice cheap way of making portable homes with minimal setup and mostly unskilled labor.
Something that lends itself nicely to decentralized manufacturing.
Thoughts?
It may be possible to manufacture regolith-based cement by heating up carbonates to drive off the CO2 and form oxides. If you just add water and let it set like you would on earth, you get around 20 wt% calcium hydroxide, which will slowly react with CO2 and deteriorate. To prevent this, a Dry-Mix/Steam Injection method might be used, which produces much less calcium hydroxide. (This is the only method I've been able to find documented in a scholarly work, although I'd love to hear if there are other techniques, scholarly or not.)
Assuming martian concrete winds up being feasible, what's the best way of actually constructing things with it? Sci-Fi geodesic domes with lots of windows are a bad idea, since they are difficult to construct and seal, and the windows facing the sky would let too much radiation through. For radiation shielding, you really need a couple meters of material. I recently came across a video showing inflatable concrete tents, which are intended for use as durable but compact and quick to put up emergency shelters. Basically, just inflate the heavy canvas tent and then soak it with water. The cloth's fibers are impregnated with cement powder, which sets overnight.
Would it make sense to try and adapt a technique like this for Mars? The traditional scaffolding and heavy machinery used commonly on earth aren't practical on mars, so it seems like minimalist construction techniques without specialized equipment are in order. Nothing brought from earth could ever offer enough passive radiation protection for anything more than a year or so stay on the surface (although huge electromagnets might be an option). Inflatable habitats like those made by Bigelow Aerospace have been suggested for use on mars, so perhaps they could be covered with a thin shell of protective regolith cement, and then covered with several meters of regolith. If plastics could be produced in situ, perhaps this technique could be adapted for additional habitats produced 100% on Mars.
Could this be a useful construction technique, or are there already better ones out there?
