Equilibrium shapes of inflated inextensible membranes

This paper proposes an effective method for directly determining the final equilibrium shapes of closed inextensible membranes subjected to internal pressures. With reference to new high-performance textile materials, we assume that the mechanical response of a fabric membrane can be accurately represented by regarding it as a two-state material. In the active state, the membrane is subject to tensile stresses and is virtually inextensible; vice versa, in the passive state it is unable to sustain any compressive stress, so it contracts freely. Equilibrium of the membrane in the final configuration is enforced by recourse to the minimum total potential energy principle. The Lagrange multipliers method is used to solve the minimum problem by accounting for the aforesaid nonlinear constitutive law. The set of governing equations is solved for the unknown coordinates of the equilibrium surface points. Closed form solutions are obtained for fully wrinkled cylindrical and axisymmetric membranes under homogeneous boundary conditions, while a simple iterative procedure is used to numerically solve cases of axisymmetric membranes under various inhomogeneous boundary conditions. The soundness of the proposed method is verified by comparing the results with solutions available in the literature. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.