Mesh reinforced membrane and its wrinkling characteristics

Abstract

Membrane structures have received a wide range of attention in applications of large-scale spacecrafts, such as inflated wing, light-than-air (LTA) airship and membrane antenna reflector, and so on. These spacecrafts need to be designed as high loading-efficiency components or structures, especially with high shape precision [1]. Therefore, some special processing and design should be done on the membranes so as to satisfy with special requirements, such as free wrinkle, ultralightweight, high shape precision, and high load-carrying ability, etc.. Several applications may give us good ideas to deal with abovementioned problems in membrane structures. One example is easy to be remembered, that is, the Super-Pressure Balloons (SPB) [2-4] covered by some ropes on membrane surface to make the balloon stable and strong. The similar considerations are also applied to some gossamer spacecraft components or structures, taking the Lunar habitat [5] as an example.