yasutaka satou

This paper addresses the ways by which the releasing and deploying behaviors of a creased space membrane can be predicted accurately. Although existing studies have analyzed the released shape of a creased membrane by considering the elasto-plastic properties, the shape did not agree with the experimental results when the membrane was tightly creased. To examine the released shape of the membrane, creasing and releasing experiments are first conducted. The experimental results indicate that the opening angle of the crease increases with increasing elapsed time after the release due to stress relaxation. The stress relaxation behavior is predicted using finite element analysis (FEA) by considering the visco-elasto-plastic material properties. In addition, an analytical model of the releasing and deploying membrane has been proposed here. The results of the FEA and the analytical model indicate that the released angles are in good agreement with those in the experimental results. Thus, the effects of viscosity are considered important for predicting the releasing behavior of the space membrane.

Membranes can be applied to deploy high-capacity, lightweight and large structures in space, such as solar sails, occulters, and sunshields. However, it is difficult to predict the shape of the membranes under low tension in orbit, mainly because gravity deflects the membrane on the ground experiments. We propose a ground-based experimental method to simulate the shape of the membrane in weightless conditions by placing the membrane in an aqueous solution. We developed a small experimental system and measured the shape of the curved membrane that floated in a sugar solution. The effectiveness of the experimental method was evaluated by comparing the experimental results with the results of geometrically nonlinear finite element analysis. In addition, these results were compared with the results of the suspended membrane without gravity compensation.

A novel approach for shape control of membrane structures is presented to realize their use in three-dimensional and variable configurations. The shape control is accomplished by exciting a spinning membrane. The membrane forms a shape consisting of several vibration modes, depending on the input frequency, and the wave surface stands still when its frequency is synchronized with the spin rate; that is, the wave propagation and the spin cancel each other, resulting in a static wave surface in the inertial frame. This idea enables control of continuous membrane structures with large deformation using fewer actuators than conventional methods. This paper describes the general theory of the static wave-based shape control. The mathematical model of membrane vibration, the classification of control input, and the control system for exciting a static wave are summarized. The proposed method is demonstrated through a ground experiment. A 1 m large polyimide film is rotated and vibrated in a vacuum chamber, and the output shape is measured using a real-time depth sensor. It is shown that the observed shapes agree with numerical simulation results. An additional simulation that models the Japanese solar sail Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun (IKAROS) demonstrates that the proposed method also works with a practically large-scalemembraneinthespaceenvironment.