Structural design conception and analysis for the structural system of large flexible airship

Nine kinds of structure systems were proposed for the flexible airship according to the inherent structural characteristics. On the basis of equilibrium configuration of the floating airship subjected to the ascent helium buoyancy and gravity, the structural analysis procedure was developed and the computation models were presented for the airship. Then the systematic numerical analysis was carried out for a 25m long airship, the comparison of principal stress of envelope was performed between the nonlinear numerical analysis result and the engineering elastic theory result. The structural performances were evaluated thoroughly. Finally, the reasonable structural systems were proposed. Accordingly, the results herein were valuable to structural design for flexible airship especially for large flexible airship.