Abstract
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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 219-228 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | International Journal of Computational Methods |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 2006 |
Keywords
- Inflatable space structures
- Inflation and deployment simulation
- Prepreg
- Reflector