ContiTech AG Balloon and Air Ship Materials

When a material is to be used for such a specialised application as airships or helium balloons there are, of course, particular demands on the material. High strength, air-tightness, weather and UV stability, conductivity and non-flammability with minimum weight at the same time are just some of the necessary requirements. Thanks to the targeted selection of the materials used, innovative manufacturing processes and extremely rigorous finishing quality, ContiTech Elastomer Coatings has succeeded in developing materials which meet the specified requirement profile in optimum fashion. The rubber used, for example, is filled with conductive carbon black to dissipate the static charge which is generated during normal operation. A high level of flame retardant is incorporated in the material. In a combustion test carried out by AXIVA GmbH the materials used were the only ones among the tested products to be classified in S4, the safest flammability category. Furthermore, the Tedlar foil used is now chemically bonded to the CSM coating in a new process which makes the materials almost impossible to separate, a significant advantage over the sandwich method used previously. A further example of the innovative applications for ContiTech materials is the HeliMax. HeliMax is a giant helium-filled "light balloon". From a height of up to 50 metres its 16,000 Watt metal vapour lamps illuminate an area with a radius of 800 metres, while it can also provide twilight-like lighting conditions within a radius of 2 kilometres. This makes it ideal for use at events such as concerts, sporting occasions or trade fairs or to illuminate large-scale building sites and disaster sites. ContiTech Elastomer Coatings supplies the canopy material for this intelligent lighting idea.