Is a large stationary aerostat possible?

[Ranmacar]

Hello!

I was thinking late one night, and would love to have someone with more than my cursory knowledge in relevant sciences have a look at this.

How hard would it be to keep a very long balloon / zeppelin stationary and stable in the air, say between 50-200m above ground? Where very long is measured in km, around 50 maybe?

Thanks!

 

[berkeman]

Hello!

I was thinking late one night, and would love to have someone with more than my cursory knowledge in relevant sciences have a look at this.

How hard would it be to keep a very long balloon / zeppelin stationary and stable in the air, say between 50-200m above ground? Where very long is measured in km, around 50 maybe?

Thanks!

Welcome to the PF.

Seems trivially easy, if I read your post correctly. The only issue is how much rent your airship would have to pay tethered to the top of a skyscraper in any large city.

 

[berkeman]

BTW, things go much better here at the PF if you post links to the reading you've been doing so far to try to answer your question. links?

 

[Ranmacar]

I wish I had saved them, it was just a Google spree before sleep :)

What I was worried about was bad weather / wind. How much could it withstand, and how stable could it be.

The idea was to make a lightweight hyperloop alternative, without the vacuum of course. Just a shielded tube for some ultralight vehicles.

 

[JRMichler]

You will find it instructive to take a guess for the diameter of your tube, say 3 meters, and calculate:

Total force on the tube in a high wind perpendicular to the tube.
Force on the anchor points.
Volume, availability, and cost of helium to hold it up.

Google search terms drag coefficient cylinder will get you everything you need to calculate wind force.
Google search terms cable catenary equations will get you everything you need to calculate the force on the anchor points.

 

[Ranmacar]

Thanks, will try to get some basic calculations done soon.

What I was thinking was 2 tubes with about 2-3m diameter enclosed in a flattened oval filled with hopefully helium, or some other lifting gas. Need to have a look at the required volumes to calculate the size of the enclosure.

What I have most trouble thinking through is how much turbulence / different wind directions to expect at the altitudes.