Extracting lamina parameters from response of laminates for inverse design of deployable structures

Abstract

Composite Tape-Spring Hinge (CTSH) is one of the basic components of space deployable structures achieving large-scale deployable mechanisms for various space missions. It is crucial to obtain the lamina parameters of the composite at the design stage to ensure that the CTSH possesses the required structural response. This work presents a strategy for extracting lamina parameters from structural response of CTSH based on optimization method. An efficient Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based surrogate model is integrated into the optimization loop to replace the time-costing finite element simulation and establish the relationship between lamina parameters and bending response of CTSH. The inverse characterization process is achieved by minimizing the objective function defined as the error between the predefined target and output results from ANN model. The efficiency of the proposed strategy was validated by using a predefined bending moment-angle curve of CTSH with known lamina parameters, and an arbitrary bending moment-angle curve was inversely constructed to further demonstrate the capability in inverse design. It is shown that the proposed method can be applied not only to extract lamina parameters from structural response, but also to guide the selection of composite lamina based on the expected structural response of deployable structures.