Related papers: Vacuum balloon -- a 350-year-old dream
The existence of glueballs is predicted in QCD, the lightest one with quantum numbers J^{PC}=0^{++}, but different calculations do not well agree on its mass in the range below 1800 MeV. Several theoretical schemes have been proposed to…
For over 50 years attempts have been made to explain the properties of nuclear matter in terms of constituent nucleons with very little success. Here we will investigate one class of many possible models, string-flip potential models, in…
The ability of liquid interfaces to shape slender elastic structures provides powerful strategies to control the architecture of mechanical self assemblies. However, elastocapillarity-driven intelligent design remains unexplored in more…
We realized and experimentally tested a conceptually new kind of electrically thin absorbers of electromagnetic waves. The idea is to utilize a single layer of precisely designed meta-atoms. This allows one to design an absorber with…
Launching orbital and suborbital rockets from a high altitude is beneficial because of e.g. nozzle optimisation and reduced drag. Aeroplanes and gas balloons have been used for the purpose. Here we present a concept where a balloon is…
Glueballs and other resonances with large gluonic components are predicted as bound states by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). The lightest (scalar) glueball is estimated to have a mass in the range from 1 to 2 GeV/c**2; a pseudoscalar and…
A miniature robotic blimp, as one type of lighter-than-air aerial vehicle, has attracted increasing attention in the science and engineering field for its long flight duration and safe aerial locomotion. While a variety of miniature robotic…
Vacuum-forming is a common manufacturing technique for constructing thin plastic shell products by pressing heated plastic sheets onto a mold using atmospheric pressure. Vacuum-forming is ubiquitous in packaging and casing products in…
Balloon releases are one of the main attractions of many fairs. Helium filled rubber balloons are released to carry postcards over preferably long distances. Although such balloons have been considered in atmospheric sciences and air safety…
Airborne wind energy is a new renewable technology that promises to deliver electricity at low costs and in large quantities. Despite the steadily growing interest in this field, very limited results with real-world data have been reported…
We investigate buckling of soft elastic capsules under negative pressure or for reduced capsule volume. Based on nonlinear shell theory and the assumption of a hyperelastic capsule membrane, shape equations for axisymmetric and initially…
A type of scenario is considered where electrically charged vacuum bubbles, formed from degenerate or nearly degenerate vacuua separated by a thin domain wall, are cosmologically produced due to the breaking of a discrete symmetry, with the…
Venus is known for its extreme surface temperature and its sulfuric acid clouds. But the cloud layers on Venus have similar temperature and pressure conditions to those on the surface of Earth and are conjectured to be a possible habitat…
In this work, we construct an effective continuum model for architected sheets that are composed of bulky tiles connected by slender elastic joints. Due to their mesostructure, these sheets feature quasi-mechanisms -- low-energy local…
When a thin sheet is crushed into a small three-dimensional volume, it invariably forms a structure with a low volume fraction but high resistance to further compression. Being a far-from-equilibrium process, forced crumpling is not…
This study proposes a soft robotic device with a slim and flexible body that switches between air blowing and suction with a single airflow control. Suction is achieved by jet flow entraining surrounding air, and blowing is achieved by…
When a hole is introduced into an elastic material, it will usually act to reduce the overall mechanical stiffness. A general ambition is to investigate whether a stiff shell around the hole can act to maintain the overall mechanical…
The existence of a glueball has been a tough work for many years study. Utilizing the well developed QCD theory for $B$ meson decays, we propose a new way to identify whether a scalar glueball existed or not. In the presence of mixing…
This paper addresses the lack of a general methodology for the controller synthesis of an optical instrument on-board a stratospheric balloon-borne platform, such as a telescope or siderostat, to meet pointing requirements that are becoming…
A slender object undergoing an axial compression will buckle to alleviate the stress. Typically the morphology of the deformed object depends on the bending stiffness for solids, or the viscoelastic properties for liquid threads. We study a…