Self-sealing liquid bladders
AssigneeThe Boeing Company
InventorsMichael P. Kozar, Mark S. Wilenski, Amy E. Bahe
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A self-sealing liquid bladder having a plurality of layers including a liquid impermeable material layer that is compatible with a liquid held in the bladder and at least one sealing layer that is conformally arranged to span a surface area of the liquid impermeable material layer and that is separated from a liquid held in the bladder by the liquid impermeable layer, the sealing layer including a sealing means that, in response to a penetration of both the liquid impermeable material layer and the sealing layer, substantially seals the penetration.
Claims20
A self-sealing liquid bladder comprising a liquid bladder having a plurality of layers including a liquid impermeable material layer that is compatible with a liquid held in the bladder, and at least one sealing layer that is conformally arranged to span a surface area of the liquid impermeable material layer and that is separated from a liquid held in the bladder by the liquid impermeable layer wherein the sealing layer includes at least one compressed fiber material that is retained in the sealing layer in a compressed state until a hole is formed in the liquid bladder at which time the compressed fiber material adjacent to the hole expands to at least partially plug the hole wherein the compressed fiber material is retained in a compressed state by a bladder fluid reactive material that releases the compressed fiber material upon contact with the liquid in the bladder.
A self-sealing liquid bladder comprising a liquid bladder having a plurality of layers including a liquid impermeable material layer that is compatible with a liquid held in the bladder, and at least one sealing layer that is conformally arranged to span a surface area of the liquid impermeable material layer and that is separated from a liquid held in the bladder by the liquid impermeable layer wherein the sealing layer includes at least one compressed material that is retained in the sealing layer in a compressed state until a hole is formed in the liquid bladder at which time the compressed material adjacent to the hole expands to at least partially plug the hole wherein the at least one compressed material are more than one individually compressed spring structures.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.