Besides the compressive rigidity of the applied filling material, the elasticity of the skin material in particular is of big

influence on the effective amount of prestress. This phenomenon can be best illustrated by a 2dimensional representation of a vacuumatics structure, consisting out of two circular elements with a certain radius [Rel], that are enclosed by a flexible skin. In this case, the elasticity of the skin material can be represented by the so called skin radius [Rsk], which describes the curvature of the piece of skin in between the two elements under vacuumatic pressure (figure 4). Theoretically there are two extreme situations: a highly elastic skin material will cover the largest surface area of the filler elements (a), whereas a non-elastic skin will only cover half the elements, hence spanning the area in between two elements (c). In reality a sort of intermediate situation will take place (b) since the extremes are physically impossible to occur. Figure 4: skin radius (related to elasticity of skin material) 2.1 Analytical approach The effective prestressing force acting on each filler element can be divided into two separate components, defined by the so called "covered angle" [n] which describes the part of the filler element that is covered by a piece of skin (see figure 4). The direct prestressing component is induced by the vacuum pressure acting "directly" on each filler element when the skin is moulded around its surface area (figure 5), whereas the indirect component is induced by the vacuum pressure acting on the piece of skin in between the two filler elements, hence indirectly pressing them together (figure 6). Figure 5: direct prestressing component Figure 6: indirect prestressing component