Seminar Schedule – Fall 2021

Tuesday, November 2, 2021
Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm
This seminar will be held virtually via Zoom in email announcement

Thin composite laminates for deployable space structures

Francisco López Jiménez
Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences
University of Colorado at Boulder

Deployable space structures are compacted and stowed during launch, and unfurled to their full dimensions once in space, enabling the large systems necessary to advance space science and technology. They often rely on the bending deformation of thin elements, and benefit from materials that, while stiff in tension, can achieve large curvatures before failure. In recent years, the industry has started relying on high strain composites: thin fiber composite laminates, whose failure curvature is underpredicted by traditional failure analysis of composites. This is due to several effects that can be neglected in thick laminates: fiber non-linearity, brittle failure size effects, and through-the-thickness strain gradients. While the enhanced bending properties of high strain composites are advantageous to build deployable systems, the lack of predictive tools makes the development of new designs expensive and time consuming. This talk will present results from recent experiments characterizing the failure properties of high strain composites and discuss the specific micromechanics taking place. We will share preliminary efforts to develop predictive tools for the failure of thin laminates under bending, accounting for the specific mechanics in tension and compression. Finally, we describe their application in deployable space structures, focusing on the design of a new deployable reflectarray.

For further information, please contact Dr. Stelios Kyriakides at skk@utexas.edu or (512) 471-4167.