williams@kirk.DEC (John Williams 223-3402) (12/05/85)
Unfortunately, the analogy between aluminum sheet and soap bubbles are invalid. Soap bubbles are formed from a liquid, and the reason that they formed spheres is because of uniform surface tension. With aluminum, the strain would not be uniform, especially at the edges, where some of the pressure is equallized from the support structure. At low pressure, it would be safe to assume a fairly crystaline atomic structure. My guess is that it would be closer to an ellipsoid. John