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Volume 1, Issue 1, Computational Environmental Heat Transfer
Volume 1, Issue 1, 2025
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Computational Environmental Heat Transfer, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2025: 6-18

Open Access | Research Article | 30 April 2025
Airships: 100 Years of a Slide Rule, Thermodynamic Stability Equations Re-casted
1 Center of Advanced Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
* Corresponding Author: Ruben Avila, [email protected]
Received: 21 January 2025, Accepted: 31 March 2025, Published: 30 April 2025  
Abstract
The theoretical fundamentals of aerostatics governing airship flight are revisited and presented in a simple manner. In the analysis it is assumed that the airship is flying in a standard atmosphere, and that both the atmospheric air and the gas inside the envelope of the airship are governed by a polytropic thermodynamic process. The equations formulated in this paper are used to solve some of the problems that were formulated in 1923 by the designers of a slide rule. The slide rule was used by the north-american pilots of the "Blimps" in the 1920s. The models presented in this paper should be considered not only to calculate the aerostatic equilibrium of the new generation airships, but also to evaluate the aerostatic performance of the balloons, that will be used in the future, to transport experimental devices to the surface of the terrestrial planets.

Keywords
airship aerostatic
thermodynamic
blimp conditions
standard atmosphere
taut conditions
outer space balloons

Data Availability Statement
Data will be made available on request.

Funding
This work was supported without any funding.

Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval and Consent to Participate
Not applicable.

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Cite This Article
APA Style
Avila, R., & Syed, S. R. (2025). Airships: 100 Years of a Slide Rule, Thermodynamic Stability Equations Re-casted. Computational Environmental Heat Transfer, 1(1), 6–18. https://doi.org/10.62762/CEHT.2025.496709

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