Abstract—This paper presented modeling and simulation for
zero pressure balloon trajectories. The simulation was validated
by real flight data. Most effective parameters on altitude
stability at floating area were investigated. Variation in
temperature was the responsible mainly for change in altitude
levels. Cloud cover was taken into consideration to demonstrate
its influences on climbing rate during ascending and on altitude
stability during floating altitude. Initial lift gas quantity was
estimated and optimized. The necessary amount of ballast drops
was optimized. Results showed the best launching time to
improve balloon performance in floating area. Also, cloud cover
was very important in balloon simulation and revealed a serious
effect on floating altitude more than climbing rate in the
ascending process. New estimation for lift gas quantity was
useful to keep climbing rate almost constant and reasonable
maintaining ascending without ballast drops to support longer
lifetime aloft. Another aspect to enhance longer lifetime at
floating altitude was the ballast mass consuming per night. It
was optimized to avoid losses in ballast masses.
Index Terms—High altitude balloons, ascending trajectory,
lift gas, ballast mass.
S. Saleh is with the School of Astronautics, Beihang University, 37
Xueyuan Road, Beijing 100191, China (e-mail: shmtcg40@hotmail.com).
[PDF]
Cite: Sherif Saleh, "Floating Performance Analysis and Extended Lifetime for
High Altitude Zero Pressure Balloon," International Journal of Modeling and Optimization vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 199-205, 2016.
