Stiffening Method for “spring-back” Reflectors

The recently proposed concept of spring back reflectors has revolutionised the field of deployable antenna structures. The whole structure is made as a single piece from composite material, without any expensive and potentially unreliable joints, and it is simply folded elastically about a central axis, like a taco shell. Shape distortions occur during manufacturing and are difficult to correct due to the low stiffness of the structure. A stiffening method is proposed, that consists of a narrow skirt connected to the edge of reflector, with up to four radial cuts. It is shown that this system can increase the stiffness of a 5 m dish by a factor of 20 and the fundamental natural frequency by a factor of 7.4. The increase in the maximum stress level during packaging is minimal and the mass of the reflector increases by 16%. Lin Tze Tan and Sergio Pellegrino