Investigation on material combination technique to enhance the anti-wrinkle and anti-vibration characteristics of the planar membrane reflector

Abstract

In recent trends, membrane structure has increased its applications in space missions due to its significant advantages, such as light in weight, higher folding and packaging efficiency, ease of deployment, and low on-Board volume requirement. The wrinkling and low natural frequency of vibration are the major problems with the membrane structure. This research presents a novel methodology of Kapton-Kevlar material combination for a planar membrane reflector to enhance anti-vibration and anti-wrinkling capabilities of the membrane structure. The comparative study is made for the wrinkle area, RMS error, and natural frequency of vibration with the employed approach. This study provides new insights into a material combination technique to increase performance characteristics of the space-borne membrane reflectors. The outcome of the wrinkling analysis is compared and found to be consistent with the method available in the literature. From the simulation results, it is observed that wrinkles are reduced, and the natural frequency of vibration is also increased significantly with the proposed method.