joining aluminum sheets techniques

"dirigible designer" wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions to my question of how to join aluminum
sheets [without rivets] for making a dirigible.

Hi "dd" (Allen?). I am familiar with the history of aluminum airships.

One remote possibility it to look into/experiment with aluminum
soldering. Once upon a time I did not think it was possible to solder
aluminum, but if you do a Google search on the subject you should find
some information on the subject. It's not impossible, merely difficult.

As to glues, I would suggest going to McMaster-Carr's website
(http://www.mcmaster.com/) and browse some of the categories under
"Fastening and Sealing". Perhaps a mix of some blind or solid rivets (to
provide structural strength) combined with a construction adhesive (to
provide a seal and some shear strength) might work?

Anyway, I'd suggest you try buying some likely candidates and try some
small-scale experiments.

Also, I believe there is a patent for the rivet machine that was invented
in order to build the ZMC airships, but I don't have the patent number
handy. But check patent 1,706,830. It is the main patent related to the
ZMC airship design. It should also hopefully provide a starting point for
finding the other patents related to the work done on the ZMC airships.

I'm thinking of employing some corrugated alum. for added stiffness
and reduced drumming. It doesn't look nice but might work well.

Well, the ZMC-2 used something like 0.006 inch thick aluminum. You can
now get hard-temper aluminum foil from MacMaster-Carr that is 0.002 inch
thick. But wider rolls (less joining needed for the same surface area)
are available down to 0.003 inch thick. Soft-temper of course can be had
down to 0.0007 inch thick. About the temper of house-hold aluminum foil,
though.

Corrugated is going to drive your raw material cost up (unless you build
equipment to corrugate the raw sheets or foil yourself). And I would
expect it would impose a large drag penalty, too.

Lastly, it is really hard to build working reduced-scale prototype
airship designs. They don't scale down well.

Good luck!