Impact Resistant Liquid Bladder With Progressive Fiber Layers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing fluid containers with bladders are prone to rupture during impacts and collisions, leading to fluid leakage, which can result in financial loss, environmental contamination, and safety risks, particularly in military vehicles.
Innovation Solution
The development of impact-resistant bladders with a conformally arranged multi-layer fiber structure, where fibers have progressively higher failure strains, allowing for energy absorption and distribution to prevent rupture, making them lighter, easier to install, and more flexible than conventional bladders.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional bladders are used in fluid containers, then the container can hold fluid, but the bladder is prone to rupture during impacts and collisions causing fluid leakage
Solution Approach 1:
The impact protection layer is segmented into multiple fiber layers with different failure strains. The first fiber layer has a lower failure strain and fails first to absorb initial impact energy, while the second fiber layer has a higher failure strain and fails later to provide additional protection. This segmentation allows progressive energy absorption and prevents catastrophic bladder rupture.
Solution Approach 2:
The bladder incorporates a composite structure combining a fluid impermeable material layer with an impact protection layer. The impact protection layer itself is a composite of different fiber materials with varying failure strains, creating a multi-functional material system that provides both fluid containment and impact resistance.
2Strength
If heavier conventional bladders are used to prevent rupture, then rupture resistance improves, but the bladder becomes harder to install and less flexible
Solution Approach 1:
The bladder uses thin film structures for both the fluid impermeable layer and the impact protection fiber layers. This allows the bladder to maintain flexibility and ease of installation while providing adequate impact protection through the engineered fiber composition rather than relying on thick heavy walls.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the protective parameters from mass/thickness to material composition and structural arrangement. By selecting fibers with specific failure strain characteristics and arranging them in multiple layers, the bladder achieves high impact resistance without increasing weight, maintaining ease of operation and flexibility.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The impact-resistant bladders effectively inhibit and prevent bladder rupture during collisions, reducing the size of any ruptures, allowing for increased fuel capacity in containers, and providing improved rupture resistance compared to prior art bladders.
Implementation Method 1
the impact protection layer includes at least one first fiber and at least one second fiber wherein the at least one first fiber fails at a lower level of strain than the at least one second fiber
Data Source
AI summary
A bladder having a fluid impermeable material layer that is compatible with a liquid held in the bladder and at least one impact protection layer that is conformally arranged to span a surface area of the liquid impermeable material.