Bulkheads in Airships

Loading of the transverse frames of airships by pressure on the bulkheads is affected by pretensioning to give metacentric stability against gas surging. Known results for radial wire bulkheads are incomplete because they depend on the unknown pretensions. The necessary pretensions to limit the reduction in metacentric height to a specified value are derived for bulkheads with or without axial restraint. A numerical comparison is made of various types of bulkhead construction.