Rigidification of Flexible, Inflatable Composite Structures

Airbeam shelters are used for military deployments, disaster relief, and commercial shelters. The advantages of airbeam shelters include lightweight, low pack volume and rapid deployment and strike. When a shelter is deployed for an anticipated long duration at a given site, it would be advantageous to rigidize the airbeams to eliminate the need to maintain inflation pressure. A number of rigidizing materials and technologies are known. These include thermosetting resins whose cure is triggered by a variety of methods, thermoplastic composites, foam-filling, and water or solvent evaporation-hardening materials. Vertigo will employ a systems engineering approach to rigidizing airbeams which will address material compatibility, application methods, packaging materials, storage methods, rigidizing after deployment, and will work toward the objective that no hazardous or polluting emissions or byproducts are generated. The major steps in the systems approach will include a requirements analysis to establish the operational need. Vertigo will then identify and evaluate candidate solutions including pre-impregnated structures, post-infused structures, foam filling, foam sandwiches, concrete pre-preg and shotcrete. Vertigo will fabricate and test samples of airbeam materials with candidate solutions. Vertigo will document the results in a technical report. A Phase I option will fabricate a prototype rigidized airbeam with the leading solution.