Dynamic analysis of spinning deployment of a solar sail composed of viscoelastic membranes

Jiang Zhao, Cheng Liu, Qiang Tian, Haiyan Hu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the spinning deployment technology of solar sails for spacecraft. Such a solar sail can be regarded as a rigid-flexible multibody system mainly composed of a central rotating hub, a number of flexible thin tethers, sail membranes and tip masses. In order to model the sail membrane, a viscoelastic finite element of thin plate is proposed via the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) and the efficacy of the finite element is testified first. Then, a simplified spinning deployable "IKAROS" model is established by using the absolutecoordinate-based (ACB) method in combination with ANCF and the natural coordinate formulation (NCF). Afterwards, a large set of stiff equations of system dynamics is solved by using the Generalized-α method. Therefore, the deployment dynamics of the system is well analyzed and the influence of the viscoelastic damping in the membranes on the deployment dynamics is discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)746-754
Number of pages9
JournalLixue Xuebao/Chinese Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
Volume45
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2013

Keywords

  • Absolute-coordinate-based (ACB) method
  • Solar sail
  • Spinning deployment
  • Viscoelasticity

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