I can upgrade the shelter-Chapter 614 - 512: A New Concept for the Dome
Although Chen Xin was researching and improving the Emergency Survival Pod, when he dismantled these used pods, he saw the possibility of enhancing the dome design from the grid structure formed after the non-Newtonian fluid material hardened.
Even though this might sound like two completely unrelated things, they indeed have certain commonalities.
The grid structure used in the Emergency Survival Pod is a complete sphere, and the dome's supporting structure is also spherical. In principle, they can be seen as the same structure.
Therefore, some design elements used in the Emergency Survival Pod can actually be applied to the dome structure.
However, there is a huge size difference between the dome structure and the Emergency Survival Pod. To apply the technology used in the Emergency Survival Pod to the dome, adjustments to the technology itself are needed.
What Chen Xin was thinking about is whether the characteristic of that non-Newtonian fluid material, which still retains a certain elasticity and has good supporting performance after solidifying upon impact, can be mimicked to enhance the strength of the dome support while reducing the weight of the support structure, making the dome lighter and enabling it to be larger.
Structurally, both adopt a triangular grid-like supporting structure, but there are differences.
This triangular support structure is the most stable structure, so using such a structure as support is not a novel idea. However, the Emergency Survival Pod uses just a single layer of planar structure, while the dome support adopts a more complex three-dimensional structure.
A single-layer planar triangular mesh structure, although stable, has some elasticity due to there being only one layer and the material itself having some deformation.
If replaced with rigid material, eliminating that little deformation margin, it would become incredibly hard.
In Chen Xin's view, this is an aspect that can be utilized.
Although the dome structure needs stability, in a certain sense, it also needs some elasticity, which is its impact resistance.
Since it's a cover over a city, although meteor impacts are now rare, in case of a meteor hit, the dome would still be the first to bear the brunt, being the first layer of impact reception.
Strengthening the material strength of the dome as much as possible to withstand meteor impacts is undoubtedly feasible.
But doing so would undoubtedly make the material processing requirements very high, along with high demands on the materials science itself, requiring a large amount of expensive materials to achieve this.
This, for Chen Xin and the country, while not unacceptable, lacks cost-effectiveness.
So if high cost-effective materials could be used to strengthen the dome structure, that would be ideal.
In the current confirmed Dome City design, the selected material for the dome structure support is still high-performance steel, constructed into a triangular grid structure in the form of hollow tubes to provide sufficient support and strength. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢
The outer layer is made of EFTE material into individual triangular airbags, then spliced together to form the outer layer of the dome.
This is also designed to resist potential meteor impacts.
If it's a large meteor impact, nothing needs to be said. Unless Chen Xin creates an Energy Shield, a meteor falling would destroy the whole city, making defense irrelevant.
But if it's a small meteor, perhaps just a tiny unburned meteor fragment falls, this dome structure can at least serve as a buffer, preventing significant damage to the city under the dome.
Moreover, even if part of this individual airbag structure is damaged, the damaged part can be replaced without having to replace the entire dome for just one hole.
Originally, only steel was suitable for making such large support structures. For other materials, neither strength nor cost was suitable.
But now the emergence of this non-Newtonian liquid material gives Chen Xin new choices and inspiration.
The strength of this material, after solidifying and hardening, has been tested. Although its hardness is not particularly outstanding, its toughness is quite good.
Although the original development idea of this material was for it to exist in liquid form, hardening upon impact, utilizing its characteristics after hardening is not impossible to use as a material.
According to Chen Xin's vision, he wants to weave an additional support structure on the surface of the triangular EFTE airbags using this material to enhance the dome's strength.
When designing the dome structure, Chen Xin actually discussed this with some experts. Initially, steel wire was proposed as a material, but this significantly increased the weight, and steel wire itself being flexible was not strong enough as support.
Although suggestions such as engineering plastics and carbon fiber were proposed later, it was either a cost issue or the material itself did not meet the requirements, ultimately leading to the abandonment of this idea.
But now the emergence of this non-Newtonian liquid material provides Chen Xin with a new option.
He can use this material to fill an additional layer of reinforcement structure inside the EFTE airbags just like the Emergency Survival Pod. When the EFTE airbags are impacted by external forces, this reinforcement layer can serve as support and cushioning, dispersing the impact brought by external forces, and enhancing the strength of the EFTE airbags.
Otherwise, EFTE material itself is also a flexible material. When damaged, it cannot maintain its own shape, which is somewhat troublesome for the dome.
For instance, with some small meteor fragments, even though they penetrate the EFTE airbags, they only create a small hole in the airbag. In such cases, without internal reinforcement support, the airbag would completely deflate.
While repair afterward can easily find the damaged part, it still affects the overall performance of the dome.
But if the airbag itself has a certain strength, even after being penetrated, it can still maintain its form, thus maintaining the overall shape of the dome to the greatest extent, not affecting performance.
Moreover, even if hit by a larger meteor, impacting multiple areas, this material as reinforcement support can maintain the overall shape and structure of the EFTE airbags as much as possible, preventing large-scale collapse due to the destruction of the underlying steel structure support.
However, although Chen Xin's idea is good, practical tests are needed to see if it is actually feasible.
Now Chen Xin intends to conduct a simulation test to see if his idea is workable.
