Inflatable Jacquard-Woven Textiles for Structural Applications

摘要

Embodiments of the invention comprise woven multilayer textiles having shaped, enclosed, inflatable pockets, where the inflated textile carries tension, compression, torsion and/or bending loads. Composite structures incorporating such inflatable members or spars are also described and claimed.

主权项

1. An inflatable spar, comprising:
a curved textile tube having warp fibers generally oriented in a first direction along the tube; and having weft fibers generally oriented in a second, different direction across the tube, wherein an adjacent plurality of weft fibers are woven together through all of a first section of warp fibers, then two subsets of the plurality of weft fibers are woven together through different subsets of a second section of warp fibers, then all of the adjacent plurality of weft fibers are woven together through all of a third section of warp fibers, the first and third sections of warp fibers thus forming a seam allowance at opposite sides of the curved textile tube and the different subsets of the second section of warp fibers forming upper and lower surfaces of the curved textile tube.