Design and Analysis of Flexible Hinge Used for Unfolding Spacecraft Solar Panels

Abstract

Two stiffness models for a flexible hinge with large rotation angle are established based on the pseudo-rigid body method and the series or parallel relationship of flexible units. Finite element simulation of the flexible hinge is conducted in ANSYS to verify the two stiffness models of the flexible hinge. A multi-objective optimization method is used to optimize the design parameters of the hinge. The stiffness models of the flexible hinge are used to establish the optimized objective function of an optimization model to improve the rotation angle of the hinge under a certain radial stiffness. After optimization, the rotation angle can reach 70 deg when the rotational and radial stiffnesses are 1.29 N·mm/rad and 1.37 N/mm.

Statics Analysis and Optimization Design for a Fixed-Guided Beam Flexure

“…5. This method has been proposed by Howell [1], and has been applied to other mechanisms [4,9]. This model is particularly useful for the large deection analysis.…”

“…The xed-guided compliant beams also used in the gripper mechanism [3]. Two common approaches to design and analysis for this mechanism includes pseudo-rigidbody model (PRBM) [4]- [6] and nite element analysis (FEA) [7,8]. But, the error of the maximum stress value between PRBM and FEA is so large.…”