Aiaa-2003-1908 Deployment Characteristics of Creased Membrane for Solar Sail on Geometrical Configuration and Fold Pattern

The performance of deployment properties on folded membrane structures for solar sail was investigated. The theoretical analyses for one-dimensional Z-fold membrane model were performed as inextensible membrane model with large deformation theory as Elastica problem. The deployment ratio was examined through numerical simulation and experiment. To correct the geometrical effects between uniform strip model and triangular mode, a correction factor based on the aspect ratio of the geometry was introduced, and the results were good agreement with the results of numerical model and experiment one. L-fold membrane model was also examined in the experiments to investigate the deployment performances as two-dimensional deployment membrane model. The results for the L-fold membrane indicate that the two-dimensional deployable membrane has less deployment performance than the one-dimensional one due to the constraint of creases. Introduction The mechanics of creased membrane has was analytically investigated in our studies.[1, 2] They showed that the residual distortion of the membrane is localized around creases. This paper investigated the deployment characteristics of creased membrane for Solar Sail on geometrical configuration and fold pattern of the membrane. Theoretical analyses for one-dimensional Z-fold membrane model are performed using the inextensible membrane model with large deformation theory as Elastica problem based on our previous studies. * Associate Professor, Department of Built Environment, AIAA senior member, e-mail: [email protected] † Graduate Student, Department of Built Environment, e-mail: [email protected] ‡ Graduate Student, Department of Built Environment Copyright c ©2003 by Hiroshi FURUYA, Yoko K. MIYAZAKI, and Hiroyasu TAKEUCHI. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., with permission. P 2l