Tip force during blossoming of coiled deployable booms

Abstract

Deployable booms are an essential part of the deployable structures family used in space. They can be stowed in a coiled form and extended into a rod like structure in an action similar to that of a carpenter's tape measure. "Blossoming" is a failure mode that some boom deployers experience where the booms uncoil within the deployer instead of extending. This paper develops a method to predict the force that a boom can exert before blossoming occurs by using the strain energy stored in the coiled boom and in the compression springs.An experimental apparatus is used to gain practical results to compare to the theory.

Blossoming analysis of composite deployable booms

“…Predicting the tip force is essential in designing an effective deployment system. Hoskin established an energy model for isotropic booms and obtained the tip force that can be sustained during the deployment process [10,11]. Hoskin subsequently analyzed the relative movement of the coil layers while blossoming, and proposed a method to incorporate the effect of friction into the model; however, the work was limited to mono-stable booms [9].…”

Deployable Bistable Composite Helical Antennas for Small Satellite Applications

“…In addition, a deployment strategy is required for unrolling the coil in space. Coiling the booms around a central spindle and compressing the structure using rollers and springs forms a suitable mechanism that is typically used in CubeSats for these two purposes [16], however, mechanisms add mass and complexity with neither being desirable for achieving a simple and low cost CubeSat. A solution removing the need of constraint presents itself by replacing the copper beryllium alloy with bistable composite material.…”

Novel Four-Cell Lenticular Honeycomb Deployable Boom with Enhanced Stiffness

“…Deployable composite ultra-thin booms can easily be folded and self-deployed by releasing stored strain energy; thus, these booms can be applied to membrane antennas and solar sails. Many cross-sectional deployable booms, such as lenticular booms [ 1 ], triangular rollable and collapsible (TRAC) booms [ 2 , 3 ], and storable tubular extendable member (STEM) booms [ 4 , 5 ], are available.…”