Basic Morphological Concepts On Deployable And Adaptive Space Structures
- Paper number
IAC-07-C2.5.07
- Author
Dr. Naoko Kishimoto, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan
- Coauthor
Dr. M.C. Natori, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/ISAS, Japan
- Coauthor
Mr. Hirotaka Watanabe, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan
- Coauthor
Dr. Ken Higuchi, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/ISAS, Japan
- Year
2007
- Abstract
In many present and future space structure systems, various elements and structures with deployable and/or adaptive functions are necessary due to the restriction of their volume during launch and the requirement of their adjustment in space environment. There have been so many ideas and studies how to pack or how to deform actual space structural hardware, but almost all of them treat only their own special elements and structures. In this paper one attempt is introduced to cralify the fundamental aspects of deployable and/or adaptive structures mainly based on geometrical considerations related to their possible morphological changes. Various existing deployable space structures are systematically arranged, and new possibility for variable geometry structures is introduced. The most important aspect of various elements and structures with deployable and/or adaptive functions is the change of element’s length. It is visibly large in deployable structures, and may sometimes be small in strain level in adaptive structures. At first one dimensionally deployable elements is considered. Such an element can be considered to be a concurrence of segments conected each other at the both ends through hinges. Types of hinges include mechanical, elastic, and sometimes separable, and types of segments include solid, elastic, and sometimes capable to carry only tension. In the z-hold concept each segment is holded at both ends, in the roll-up concept segments are all rolled, and in the telescopic concepts separable hinges are used. Through these concepts the length of an element is changed during deployment. These consideration is easily extended to the cases of two- and three-dimensional elements. In those elements depending on coordinalte systems, various types of deployment can be arranged systematically. Especially many possible types of deployable circular structures are shown in detail related to future solar sail spacecraft, and it is also presented how to include the effect of element’s thickness. Various new possibilities on adaptive structures with variable geometry capability are also introduced, which include variable geometry length (VG Truss) structures, variable geometry surface (VGS) structures, and variable geometry volume (VGV) structures.
- Abstract document