Improved Material Fabric Systems for Construction of Advanced Life Rafts

Novel textile construction for inflatable components with exceptional puncture, cut, tear and abrasion resistance with high strength, light weight and low bulk for small volume storage which are inflatable and can be manufactured at low cost are enabling for a variety of defense applications. The goal is a significant improvement over state-of-the-art inflatable textiles that also eliminates cracking on exposure to hot dry environments for the fabrication of advanced life rafts. Hybrid multilayer composite textiles for space applications already meet many of the requirements defined for defense inflatable applications such as strength, puncture resistance, and absence of cracking under hot and dry environments. Modification of the hybrid multilayer composite textile developed for space applications to enhance robustness can readily meet defined requirements for fabricating seamed advanced life rafts at considerable weight savings. The advanced state of development of the hybrid multilayer composite textile permits conformation testing to demonstrate meeting requirements that provides the capability to also fabricate demonstration prototype inflatables during Phase I.