A review on specialty elastomers based potential inflatable structures and applications

With the escalation in continuous human curiosity, massive research work is going on in the field of inflatable structures and inflatable systems. These inflatable structures offer a great advantage for the building of emergency air shelters for civilian and military, industrial fuel and gas storage tanks, life rafts, lifeboats, etc. Even, more advanced inflatables like hull structure for lighter-than-air systems (LTA) and inflated radomes are employed in the defence sector. The advantage of inflatable structures lies on their excellent mechanical strength, lightweight, durability and they can be stored in a small volume. Specialty elastomers play an important role in developing inflatable structures because of their excellent properties towards weather resistance, UV and ozone resistance, stability against aging, and oxidation. In addition, they show good gas and vapour barrier properties. In the beginning of this review article, the structure and properties of specialty elastomers selected in this study have been discussed and then the gas transport mechanism through polymeric material is described. In the last part, the development of diverse types of inflatable systems used in industry, defence, and marine applications have been highlighted. More attention is given to the advanced application of inflatables in the defence sector. Throughout this review work, various literature and published work related to specialty elastomers application in inflatable systems have been reviewed. The main emphasis of this study is on the structure, properties and application of specialty elastomers in the advancement of inflatable structures.