Electrostatic-Structure Couple Field Analysis in Electrode Plate Design of Electrostatic Membrane Reflector with Composite Properties of Membrane Material

Abstract

Electrode plate is a key component of membrane reflector which is light enough and deployable for launching into the space for large aperture telescope. But due to complexity of the control and structure design of electrostatic membrane reflector, it is difficult to begin the trial research. In this paper, firstly, the electrode plate type about the electrodes distribution is analyzed and designed. Then, ANSYS parametric design language is used to analyze the electrostatic-structure couple field in a numerical method and by which interval distances among the electrodes is determined. Finally, prototypes of the electrode plate and the electrostatic membrane reflector are manufactured. And the following work about the control and measurement of the stretched membrane shape shows the work in this paper is feasible and effective.

Optimization design combined with coupled structural–electrostatic analysis for the electrostatically controlled deployable membrane reflector

“…Generally speaking, these methods can be summarized into two steps, of which one is to calculate the required electrostatic force based on mechanical analysis and the second one is to calculate the controlling voltages according to the parallel capacitor principle [19,20]. Considering the limitations of using the parallel capacitor principle to compute the controlling voltages, some researchers analyzed the electrical field distribution in the space between the membrane and the electrodes using the electrical field theory and finite element method [21][22][23], but they did not take the coupled problem into consideration. Moreover, the mechanical analysis assumed that the initial geometric configuration of the membrane was flat, which also brought many problems, such as the "W-profile" shape error, poor stress uniformity and high voltage demand if the membrane is required to stretch to small F/D surface [24][25].…”