Deployment Dynamics of Composite Booms with Integral Slotted Hinges

This paper considers a lightweight boom with an integral hinge consisting of a thinwalled tube made of carbon fibre reinforced plastic with two longitudinal slots. The dynamic deployment of this boom is studied both experimentally and by means of detailed finite-element simulations. The deployment of the boom can be divided into three phases: deployment; incomplete latching, buckling of the tape springs and large rotation of the boom; and vibration of the boom in latched configuration. The simulations show that the most critical phase is the second one, as the highest strains in both the fibres and the matrix occur at this stage. Through the simulations it is found that the deployment of the particular boom design studied in this paper is quite sensitive to the details of the gravity offload system.