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Gravity Balloons
#11
Another thought: compression.

The idea of a gravity balloon is that the weight of the shell is balanced against gas pressure. Something I ran into with Hawkings Not Here is shells placed in compressional stress are very vulnerable to buckling, especially large shells. I would've loved to make HNH 50 or 100km in diameter, but the shell thickness became ridiculous (tens of kilometers with diamondoid). HNH, of course, has a vacuum center and is entirely dependent on the structural shell, unlike a gravity balloon.

But in larger volumes, you can't depend on constant air pressure. Differential heating will create differential pressure across many square kilometers.

I suppose you could over-pressurize a bit to keep the shell prestressed in tension against any reasonable pressure drop, but the structure is vulnerable to catastrophic collapse if there's a lot of air loss.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
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"Everbody's always in favor of saving Hitler's brain, but when you put it in the body of a great white shark, oh, suddenly you've gone too far." -- Professor Farnsworth, Futurama
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Messages In This Thread
Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-08-2013, 08:36 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-15-2013, 05:49 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by ai_vin - 12-15-2013, 07:25 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by ai_vin - 12-15-2013, 07:27 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-15-2013, 07:54 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 12-19-2013, 07:15 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-21-2013, 06:19 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by JohnnyYesterday - 12-21-2013, 05:53 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Cray - 03-06-2014, 11:18 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 05-24-2014, 04:14 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-06-2014, 05:49 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Cray - 03-07-2014, 12:13 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 05-24-2014, 04:30 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-07-2014, 02:47 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Cray - 03-07-2014, 03:24 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 11-19-2014, 01:18 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by Drashner1 - 11-19-2014, 02:09 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 11-19-2014, 05:54 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 11-19-2014, 07:31 PM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 12-31-2014, 04:32 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by AlanSE - 03-25-2015, 04:01 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-25-2015, 05:42 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 03-27-2015, 07:24 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by sandcastles - 07-02-2016, 11:06 AM
RE: Gravity Balloons - by stevebowers - 07-03-2016, 07:15 AM

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