Development of the Conceptual Design Algorithm for Tactical Aerostat

In this paper, an algorithm for the conceptual design of the aerostat is developed. This tactical aerostat is an intermediate step for stratospheric high altitude platforms. In the presented algorithm, the design and operational parameters of the aerostat such as geometry and dimension of the aerostat hull, shape and configuration of the tails, the mass budget of the balloon components, ballonet percentage, fabrics materials, stress of hull fabric, tether tension at the winch, static margin, angle of attack, blow by, tether length, tether profile, the confluence point position, etc. are determined via 4 distinguished loops. In addition, an aerostat is designed for the special given requirements using this algorithm, and the results are prepared in the paper. Furthermore, to optimize the tail sizing, the Taguchi orthogonal array L16 (45) is used. 16 different tails are designed and the static stability of the aerostat is analyzed using these tails and the final optimum geometry of the tail is introduced. Finally, the influence of the wind velocity, payload mass, payload position, and the operational height above mean sea level on the operational parameters of the aerostat are explored.