Inflation and deployment simulation of rigidizible beam for large deployable reflectors

The inflatable/rigidizable tube is a basic element for inflatable space structures. It can be made of carbon fabric/epoxy prepreg which includes a rigidizable epoxy resin and woven fabric. The fabric prepreg will be kept in prepreg state while stowed and then cured post deployment to be rigid in orbit. In this paper, a simple homogenized shear model of the fabric prepreg under inner pressure action is proposed to investigate shear modulus variation with the inner pressure; the dynamic inflation and deployment process of the fabric prepreg tube is simulated by LS-DYNA with airbag and multi-cavity model, and effects on deployment properties including inflation speed, material properties, and folder geometry are investigated.