For decades, the United States Navy has used small displacement landing craft to be the conduit between heavy-tonnage ships offshore and the landing zone ashore. This has been the primary means of transporting troops and their combat and logistics support. The problem with this procedure is that displacement landing craft can only get close enough to the beach to disembark vehicles and personnel to wade the final distance ashore. Although the water is shallow, the vehicles must be specifically designed to operate in the corrosive seawater environment. An alternative method the Navy has used is to construct floating causeways. These systems have their own problems such as long deployment times and the inability to be used in Sea State 3 or higher. The goal of MOSES project is to design a causeway that can reach large ships in deep water, keep vehicles dry, and be safely operational in at least Sea State 4. Research of inflatable structures proved promising in that they are easily deployed, lightweight and compact making them extremely appealing. The biggest problem faced in the design was to make a rigid and stable structure using a flexible textile that can support any vehicle currently in use in today's Marine Expeditionary Brigade.
MOSES - Inflatable Causeway
2007
46 pages
Report
No indication
English
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