Essential Information & explanations, latest texts & monographs on
Ballooning.
The Joy of Ballooning by George Denniston
The Pre-Astronauts: Manned Ballooning on the Threshold of Space (Bluejacket Paperback Series) by Craig Ryan
Ballooning Handbook by Don Cameron
A Rainbow Balloon: A Book of Concepts by Ann Lenssen
Taming the Gentle Giant: A Guide to Hot Air Ballooning by Amogene Norwood
Ballooning by Anthony Smith
Complete Ballooning Book by Will Hayes
Ballooning : The Complete Guide to Riding the Winds by Dick Wirth
Hot Air Ballooning by Barry Wells
Flying in a Hot Air Balloon by Cheryl Walsh Bellville
Military Ballooning During the Early Civil War by Frederick Stansbury Haydon
The War of the Aeronauts: The History of Ballooning in the Civil War by Charles M. Evans
Riding the Jetstream :The Story of Ballooning: From Montgolfier to Breitling by John Christopher
Ballooning: High and Wild by Irene Adler
Hot Air Balloons by Christine Kalakuka
Balloon(Redirected from Ballooning)
A balloon is a flexible bag normally filled with air or gas. Early balloons were made of dried animal bladders.
A just-landed hot air balloon is pulled across the grass to a better area for deflation
A hot air balloon is prepared for flight, by inflation with propane burners
Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide")
1 Balloons as flying machines
2 Balloons in the military
3 Balloons as decoration or entertainment
4 Balloons in medicine
5 Balloon tank
6 External link
Balloons as flying machines
A balloon is conceptually the simplest of all flying machines. The balloon is a fabric "envelope" filled with a gas that is lighter than the surrounding atmosphere. As the entire balloon is less dense than its surroundings, it rises, taking along with it a "gondola" attached underneath that carries passengers or payload.
The first balloon, launched in 1783 by two Parisian brothers named Montgolfier, used hot air to obtain buoyancy. Balloons using the light gas hydrogen for buoyancy were also developed at the same time. Jean Pierre Blanchard made the first piloted balloon flight in North America on January 9, 1793. Although a balloon has no propulsion system, a degree of directional control is possible through making the balloon rise or sink in altitude to find favorable wind directions.
Both the hot-air, or Montgolfière, balloon and the gas balloon are still in common use. Montgolfière balloons are relatively inexpensive as they do not require high-grade materials for their envelopes, and they are popular for balloonist sport activity.
Light gas balloons are predominant in scientific applications, as they are capable of reaching much higher altitudes for much longer periods of time. They are generally filled with helium. Although hydrogen has more lifting power, it is explosive in an atmosphere full of oxygen. With a few exceptions, scientific balloon missions are unmanned.
There are two types of light-gas balloons: zero-pressure and superpressure. Zero-pressure balloons are the traditional form of light-gas balloon. They are partially inflated with the light gas before launch, with the gas pressure the same both inside and outside the balloon. As the zero-pressure balloon rises, its gas expands to maintain the zero pressure difference, and the balloon's envelope swells.
At night, the gas in a zero-pressure balloon cools and contracts, causing the balloon to sink. A zero-pressure balloon can only maintain altitude by releasing gas when it goes too high, where the expanding gas can threaten to rupture the envelope, or releasing ballast when it sinks too low. Loss of gas and ballast limits the endurance of zero-pressure balloons to a few days.
A superpressure balloon, in contrast, has a tough and inelastic envelope that is filled with light gas to pressure higher than that of the external atmosphere, and then sealed. The superpressure balloon cannot change size greatly, and so maintains a generally constant volume. The superpressure balloon maintains an altitude of constant density in the atmosphere, and can maintain flight until gas leakage gradually brings it down.
Superpressure balloons offer flight endurance of months, rather than days. In fact, in typical operation a Earth-based superpressure balloon mission is ended by a command from ground control to open the envelope, rather than by natural leakage of gas.
For air transport balloons must contain a gas lighter than the surrounding air. There are two types:
- hot air balloons: filled simply with hot air, which by heating becomes lighter than the surrounding air; they have been used to carry human passengers since the 1790s;
- balloons filled with:
Large helium balloons are used as high flying vessels to carry scientific instruments (as do weather balloons), or even human passengers.
See: Montgolfiere, Zeppelin, Blimp, Airship, QinetiQ 1.
Balloons in the military
Some military use of balloons is discussed in hot air balloons.
In World War II, gas-filled barrage balloons with cables hanging from them were used to intercept low-flying aircraft in the Battle of Britain. Also, the Japanese attempted to send bombs to the US via balloons carried in the jet stream; see fire balloons.
Balloons as decoration or entertainment
Party balloons are mostly made of artificial polymer rubber and can be filled with air, helium, water, or any other suitable liquid or gas. The rubber makes the volume adjustable. If the balloon is blown up too much the balloon bursts with a bang. Rubbing a balloon produces a special sound that is very unpleasant for some people.
Filling with air is done with the mouth or with a pump.
When rubber balloons are filled with helium so that they float (restrained by ribbons or strings) they can hold their shape for only a few hours. The enclosed air or helium escapes through small pores, and helium atoms being much smaller than the nitrogen and oxygen molecules in air, it escapes much quicker. Even a perfect rubber membrane eventually loses helium to the outside, and its contents are contaminated by oxygen and nitrogen migrating inward from the outside. The gases in question actually dissolve in the rubber on one side and are released from solution on the other. The process by which a substance migrates from a region of high concentration, through a barrier to a region of lower concentration is called osmosis. The inside of balloons can be treated with a special spray (e.g. "Hi Float" brand) to reduce the helium leakage.
Beginning in the early 1990s, some more expensive (and longer-lasting) helium balloons have been made of thin, unstretchable, impermeable Mylar films. These mylar balloons have attractive shiny reflective surfaces and are often printed with color pictures and patterns. The most important attributes of Mylar for balloons are its light weight, increasing buoyancy and its ability to keep the helium gas from escaping for several weeks. However, there has been some environmental concern, since the Mylar does not biodegrade or shred as a rubber balloon does, and a helium balloon released into the atmosphere can travel a long way before finally bursting or deflating.
Partygoers sometimes entertain each other by untying a balloon and inhaling the helium. Because the speed of sound in helium is about twice that in air, the helium causes the vocal tract to become more responsive to high-pitched sounds and less responsive to lower ones. The result is a voice that sounds high-pitched (and usually very funny).
Balloon artists are entertainers who twist and tie inflated tubular balloons into sculptures. The balloons used for balloon sculpture are made of extra-stretchy rubber so that they can be twisted and tied without bursting.
Since the pressure required to inflate a balloon is inversely proportional to the diameter of the balloon, these tiny tubular balloons are extremely hard to inflate initially. A pump is usually used to inflate these balloons.
Decorators may use dozens of helium balloons to create balloon sculpture. Usually the round shape of the balloon restricts these to simple arches or walls, but on occasion more ambitious "sculptures" have been attempted.
Water balloons are thin, small rubber balloons intended to be easily broken. They are usually used by children, who throw them at each other, trying to get each other wet. (See practical joke.) A popular game with this idea is a water balloon toss, where two lines of people stand opposite each other and throw balloons back and forth. This continues until the balloons burst, showering whomever failed to catch it.
Balloons in medicine
Angioplasty is a surgical procedure in which very small balloons made of a special material are inserted into blocked or partially blocked blood vessels near the heart. Once in place, the balloon can be inflated to clear or compress arterial plaque, and to stretch the walls of the vein. A small stent can be inserted in its place to keep the vessel open after the balloon's removal. See heart attack.
Balloon tank
See Atlas (rocket).
External link
The above article is adapted from from Wikipedia All Wikipedia article text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
Recent related patents from USPTO:
6719641: Golf iron having a customizable weighting feature
6718748: Yarn covering apparatus and method
6711436: Compositions, apparatus and methods for facilitating surgical procedures
6710090: Inhibitory or blocking agents of molecular generating and/or inducing functions
6709421: Ostomy pouches
6709230: Ceramic matrix composite gas turbine vane
6706348: Composite spoolable tube with sensor
6706047: Suture support assembly
6705071: False-twist texturing method
6702845: Compacted implantable medical devices and method of compacting such devices
6702763: Sizing apparatus and method for use during ventricular restoration
6699186: Methods and apparatus for deploying and implantable biosensor
6699176: External tissue distraction with expanding frames
6695872: Therapy component of an animate body heat exchanger and method of manufacturing such component
6695826: Venting/filter assembly, bag incorporating same and method of venting flatus gasses
6694057: Method and apparatus for processing images with curves
6693122: Nitrosated and nitrosylated potassium channel activators, compositions and methods of use
6692511: Method of forming a thin walled member by extrusion and medical device produced thereby
6689461: False twisted yarn of polyester composite fiber and method for production thereof
6682875: Method and apparatus for imaging with fiber optic arrays on non-flat surfaces
6682815: Stretched yarn pirn
6682730: Transplants for myocardial scars
6682681: Method of fabricating a thermoplastic rubber encapsulated transformer
6681773: Kit and method for use during ventricular restoration
6676535: Golf club head having a low and deep weight distribution
6676188: Garment for occupants of personal recreational vehicles
6673443: Polyester conjugate fiber pirn and method for producing same
6673102: Covered endoprosthesis and delivery system
6672331: Bonnet securement for gas pressure regulators
6671979: Air flow shoe system
6664318: Encapsulant compositions with thermal shock resistance
6664230: Orally administered peptides to ameliorate atherosclerosis
6663669: Ankle replacement system
6663667: Towel graft means for enhancing tissue ingrowth in vascular grafts
6659988: Ostomy appliance
6652615: Seal for filter element
6651659: Ambulatory storage system for pressurized gases
6651493: Torque converter dynamometer and method of using same
6650761: Watermarked business cards and methods
6648912: Temporary stent assembly for use in a surgical procedure
6645374: Membrane module for gas transfer and membrane supported biofilm process
6644110: Measurements of properties and transmission of measurements in subterranean wells
6641527: Method and apparatus for external tissue distraction with frame having membrane applied with surface tension
6636758: Marker wire and process for using it
6635066: Surgical fastener for use during a surgical procedure
6632923: Low density lipoprotein binding proteins and their use in diagnosing and treating atherosclerosis
6632204: External urinary catheter device for the relief of male urinary incontinence
6631720: Laryngeal mask with large-bore gastric drainage
6629942: Devices and methods for abdominal support
Bibliographic Resources
Updates and comments at Essential Facts blog
Are you interested in Feng Shui?
Price Theory Resources
World Class Photographers
Some philosophical movements
Top PDF and eBook Downloads
|
|
Interesting Links
Sports
Kitchen Knowledge
Hollywood Icons
Mythology
Philosophy
Politics
Retirement
Accounting & Finance
Automobiles
Marketing
Psychology
Academic Subjects
Ancient Greeks
Art & Design
Biology
Biology & Biologists
California
Cats & Dogs
Ethics
Logic
The Greats
Architectural Dates & Places
* Mathematics & Mathematicians
Medical Update d06
More
Chromosomes and Genomics
Enginering Systems 1
Investments
Transportation
Mathematics
Brilliant Mathematicians
Classic Authors
Fear No Exams
Nexus
Characters & countries
Computers + 2
Science Plus
Science & Computers
Quantum Theory
Home, Site-Map
|
