Kinematical Simulation Of Space Over-constraint Deployable Mechanism

Paper number

IAC-07-C2.3.08

Author

Dr. XiaoFei Ma, China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), China

Coauthor

Prof. Juanfang Wei, China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), China

Year

2007

Abstract

Kinematical Simulation of Space Over-Constraint Deployable Mechanism
                    Abstract 
Many deployable mechanism have widely space applications, and several spacecrafts failed to function owing to failure of deployment of space solar array or antenna. Many reasons may cause the failure of deployable mechanism, but most of the failure facts have common structure characteristics of over-constraint. The stiffness is a critical specification to the space structure so that many over constraint mechanisms is used to enhance the deployable structure stiffness. Owing to existence of clearance, over-constraint mechanism in some occasion may result in deploying infeasibility as the disaccord of axis clearance can lead to deploying failure to space mechanism. The disaccords of axis clearance may come from many factors such as thermal distortion, manufacture, match tolerance, assembly error, and so on. 

This paper studies the kinematical model of over-constraint deployable mechanism, mainly analyzes the possible deployment failure modes and find the reasons. Kinematical models were established for three common deployable mechanisms, including polygonal plate-plate connection mechanism, polygonal rod-rod connection mechanism, polygonal plate-rod compound connection mechanism. Disaccords of clearance from different source are simulated in the models. The thermal distortion clearance comes from the elastic FEA analysis results using the detail joint FEA model under the thermal loads of uniform and gradient temperature in obit. At last, the paper discusses with several possible measurements to fix the deploying failure of over-constraint mechanism and concludes with several design principal for reliable deployable mechanisms.   



Announcement by Authors
The material used in this paper is new and original. The paper was not presented at a previous meeting. The financing and attendance of an author at the respective 58th IAC to present the paper is assured.

Abstract document

IAC-07-C2.3.08.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-07-C2.3.08.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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