Dynamics testing and simulation of inflatable deployable

Abstract

The inflatable deployablemembrane antenna structures have many advantages such as small folding size, high reliability and low cost. The structure mainly consists of its center hub, thin-plate ribs, inflatable thermo-curing torus, reflected membrane and inflation control system. This paper establishes a deployable system to simulate zero-gravity based on the parabolic membrane antenna with inflatable torus and tests the deployable process. The shell-membranes finite element model of the antenna structuresis modeled to simulateof the dynamics charactersof the structure. After that the effectsof the different inflatable pressure inside its support torus, the temperature of thermos-curing on the dynamic characteristics are also discussed.Finally,the dynamic charactersof the inflatable antenna was tested on the condition of the horizontal suspension system with 12 elastic strings and the fully structural vibrational frequency were given, and the mode of vibration and damping ratio was verified to the correctness of the simulation method. These results provide the reference for the design of inflatable deployment antenna structures.