Coated and Laminated Textiles for Aerostats and Airships: Material Challenges and Technology

Aerostats/airships are lighter-than-air (LTA) aircraft which are generally used in defense applications and face many harsh environmental conditions. This book covers material challenges and technology innovation in coated and laminated textiles for aerostat/airship including materials used by different countries, challenges and future scope.

Mangala Joshi is a Professor in the Department of Textile Technology at IIT Delhi. She specializes in Polymer / Fiber Science & Technology and is an alumnus of IIT Delhi having obtained her M Tech and PhD degrees in Polymer Science and Technology in the year 1986 and 1992 respectively. Her current research interests are - Nanotechnology Applications in Textiles, Polymer Nanocomposites: fibers and coatings, Nano-Biomaterials, Nanocoatings and Nanofibers, Bioactive and Functional Textiles and Environmental Friendly Technologies. She has been involved in investigating several sponsored research projects funded by DST (Nanomission), Govt. of India, Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE, Agra) DRDO, Department of Biotechnology (DBT- Govt. of India) and Industry both national and international. She is the recipient of 3rd National award (2012-13) for ’Technology Innovation’ under the category of R &D in the field of ’Polymer Science and Technology’ awarded by Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Govt of India.
She is the coordinator of research vertical on ’Smart and Intelligent Textiles’ under the Joint Advanced Technology Centre (JATC) set up at IIT Delhi by Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) under an MOU. She is the principal investigator of research project on ’Development of Materials for Aerostat and Airship Envelope’ under JATC. She was also a member of Nano Research Group at IIT Delhi working on ＂Bioactive Nanocomposites＂ under a sponsored project by US multinational Lockheed Martin wherein she holds a US patent and currently working on sponsored project from GAIL India on ’Multifunctional Hybrid Polymer Nanocomposites’ . She has guided many PhD, M Tech and B Tech projects at IIT Delhi related to these research areas. She has more than 80 refereed publications in international and national journals and about 100+ papers in conferences and also authored several book chapters. She has traveled widely abroad and presented her work at prestigious International as well as national Conferences as invited speaker. She serves as Core member for Expert Committee on ＂Materials, Mining and Metallurgy’ and Co-opted member for expert committee on ＂Engineering Sciences＂ of ’Science and Engineering Research Board’ SERB, DST, Govt. of India for the year 2015-18. She is member of Research Advisory Council of ADRDE, DRDO, Agra, DMSRDE, Kanpur, Northern India Textile Research Association, NITRA, Ghaziabad and PSG Institute of Advanced Research, Coimbatore. She is an executive member of professional bodies such as Polymer Processing Academy (PPA) and Fiber Forum India (FFI), Textile Association of India.