Experimental and Numerical Studies on Bending and Failure Behaviour of Inflated Composite Fabric Membranes for Marine Applications

Abstract

Owing to their excellent physical characteristics of lightweightiness, compactness and rapid deployment, the inflated membrane structures satisfy the demands of maritime salvage and military transportation for long-distance delivery and rapid response. Exploring the failure behaviour of inflated membrane structures can greatly contribute to their widespread applications in ocean engineering. In this research, the main objective is to comprehensively investigate the bending and failure behaviour of inflated membrane structures. Thus, the Surface-Based Fluid Cavity method is employed to set up the finite element model (FEM) which is compared to the experimental results to verify its reliability. In parallel, the effects of internal pressure and wrinkles are discussed. An empirical expression of the ultimate bending loading was fitted by face-centred composite designs of the Response Surface Methodology. The results of experiments and FEM show that the bearing capacity of the inflated membrane structure is positively correlated with the internal pressure but decreased obviously with the occurrence and propagation of wrinkles. The deformation behaviour and the stress distribution are similar to those of the traditional four-point bending beam, and the local instability induced by wrinkles will cause structural failure. In addition, the numerical model and the proposed expression showed deviations below 5% in relation to the experimental measures. Therefore, the FEM and proposed expression are high of reliability and have important engineering guiding significance for the application of inflated membrane structures in ocean engineering.