This article proposed a new convenient method to obtain tear strength of an airship envelope fabric, which is a laminated plain weave fabric with the ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers. First, a modified formula based on Maekawa’s empirical formula was derived. Uniaxial tear tests were then conducted on three series of single-edge notched specimens with varying widths and their critical tear stresses were measured. The experimental result showed that critical tear stress decreases with the reduction of specimen width when initial crack length is fixed. Afterward, the tear stresses of the fabric were simulated by Maekawa’s empirical formula, the modified formula, and Thiele formula. By comparing the theoretical results with the experimental results, the modified formula was verified to be consistent well with the test data. Finally, an equation was derived, which shows tear strength of this fabric decreases as initial crack length increases. For instance, when the initial crack length is 31.75 mm, the tear strength is only 44.52% of the tensile strength.
This paper investigated the mechanical properties of GQ-6 subjected to a tremendous amount of uniaxial tests. Such material is a new kind of ultra high molecular weight polyethylene fiber and aimed to be adopted in stratospheric airship. To begin with, mono-uniaxial tensile tests were conducted. The cycling-uniaxial tensile experiments were then carried out on the basis of the mono-uniaxial tensile tests data. Finally, performances of welding seams were thoroughly investigated with forty welding specimens. Results of mono-uniaxial tensile tests revealed that such woven fabric possesses high tensile strength and low elongation ratio at break. Meanwhile, the stress–strain behaviors were fitted by the Ogden model and a good agreement between such model and experimental data was obtained. Influences of the uniaxial loading cycle on such woven stiffness were discussed and the elastic moduli were defined with a standard hysteresis loop. For the welding tests, four types of overlapping welding failures were discovered. Compared with intact specimens, an appropriate welding width of 60 mm and an approximate 15% discount of the ultimate tensile stress on the intact textile were obtained.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.