Bistable tape springs are ultrathin fiber-reinforced polymer composites, which could self-deploy through releasing stored strain energy. Strain energy relaxation is observed after long-term stowage of bistable tape springs due to viscoelastic effects and the tape springs might lose their self-deployment abilities. In order to mitigate the viscoelastic effects and thus ensure self-deployment, different tape springs were designed, manufactured, and tested. Deployment experiments show that a four-layer, [−45/0/90/45], plain weave glass fiber tape spring has a high capability to mitigate the strain energy relaxation effects to ensure self-deployment after long-term stowage in a coiled configuration. The two inner layers increase the deployment force and the outer layers are used to generate the bistability. The presented four-layer tape spring can self-deploy after more than six months of stowage at room temperature. A numerical model was used to assess the long-term stowage effects on the deployment capability of bistable tape springs. The experiments and modeling results show that the viscoelastic strain energy relaxation starts after only a few minutes after coiling. The relaxation shear stiffness decreases as the shear strain increases and is further reduced by strain energy relaxation when a constant shear strain is applied. The numerical model and experiments could be applied in design to predict the deployment force of other types of tape springs with viscoelastic and friction effects included.

Metamaterials, man-made composites that are scaled smaller than the wavelength, have demonstrated a huge potential for application in acoustics, allowing the production of sub-wavelength acoustic absorbers, acoustic invisibility, perfect acoustic mirrors and acoustic lenses for hyper focusing, and acoustic illusions and enabling new degrees of freedom in the control of the acoustic field. The zero, or even negative, refractive sound index of metamaterials offers possibilities for the control of acoustic patterns and sound at sub-wavelength scales. Despite the tremendous growth in research on acoustic metamaterials during the last decade, the potential of metamaterial-based technologies in aeronautics has still not been fully explored, and its utilization is still in its infancy. Thus, the principal concepts mentioned above could very well provide a means to develop devices that allow the mitigation of the impact of civil aviation noise on the community. This paper gives a review of the most relevant works on acoustic metamaterials, analyzing them for their potential applicability in aeronautics, and, in this process, identifying possible implementation areas and interesting metabehaviors. It also identifies some technical challenges and possible future directions for research with the goal of unveiling the potential of metamaterials technology in aeronautics.

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Lightweight deployable space webs have been proposed as platforms or frames for a construction of structures in space where centrifugal forces enable deployment and stabilization. The Suaineadh project was aimed to deploy a 2×2m2 space web by centrifugal forces in milli-gravity conditions and act as a test bed for the space web technology. Data from former sounding rocket experiments, ground tests and simulations were used to design the structure, the folding pattern and control parameters. A developed control law and a reaction wheel were used to control the deployment. After ejection from the rocket, the web was deployed but entanglements occurred since the web did not start to deploy at the specified angular velocity. The deployment dynamics was reconstructed from the information recorded in inertial measurement units and cameras. The nonlinear torque of the motor used to drive the reaction wheel was calculated from the results. Simulations show that if the Suaineadh started to deploy at the specified angular velocity, the web would most likely have been deployed and stabilized in space by the motor, reaction wheel and controller used in the experiment