Uncertainty analysis of satellite structures

This paper discusses the analysis of uncertainties in structural analysis of space crafts. Various sources for the discrepancies between prediction and measured response are identified. It is shown that only the effect of scatter of the structural parameters can be studied further by appropriate analysis tools. It is suggested to model uncertainties mathematically within the framework of stochastic analysis. Since structural analysis is all most exclusively performed by employing deterministic FE-codes, the suggested approach must be capable to rely on these well developed analysis tools. As a consequence, Monte Carlo simulation is proposed as general tool to study the effect of the scatter of the structural parameters. Such a tool has been developed under guidance of the European Space Agency (ESA). It allows the specification of probability distribution for uncertain structural parameters, the initialization of the deterministic FE-run and post-processing the relevant response quantities.