Deflection prediction of inflatable flat panels under arbitrary conditions

Inflatable panels made of modern and new textile materials can be inflated at high pressure to have a high mechanical strength. This paper is based on the finite element method as a general solution to determine the characteristics of deformed inflatable panels at high pressure in various end and loading conditions. Proposed method is based on the construction of weak form of formulation and application of Reduced Integration Element method (RIE) to solve the numerical problem of shear locking. The numerical results are validated as an outcome of comparison with other published results.