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5

th
International Conference on Composite Science and Technology
(ICCST/5), February 2005, Sharjah, UAE
Triaxially Woven CFRP Deployable Reector Antennas
Lin Tze Tan

Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering,


University College London,
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT,UK
l.tan@ucl.ac.uk
Sergio Pellegrino

Department of Engineering,
University of Cambridge,
Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ,UK
Abstract
We have recently proposed a new concept for stiened deployable reectors consisting of a thin
parabolic carbon-bre-reinforced-plastic (CFRP) shell stiened along the edge by an elastically
collapsible stiener. This reector is manufactured from triaxially woven CFRP composite and
has a completely passive i.e. no controls deployment mechanism. Residual cooling stresses from
the manufacturing process often induce relatively large distortions in thin CFRP structures
potentially reducing their surface accuracy. It is shown by analysis that these distortions are
reduced by a factor of 80 compared to an unstiened reector. With the correct parameters
for the stiening system, the paper concludes that it is possible to increase the stiness of thin
shell reectors by at least 37 times and the deployed fundamental frequency by 10 times.
1 Introduction
The Stiened Spring Back Reector [7] consists of a thin-walled, parabolic dish made of carbon
bre reinforced plastic (CFRP), which is then elastically folded for launch on a spacecraft.
These reectors are constructed as a single piece, without any joints or hinges, and hence are
relatively inexpensive to manufacture. The folding concept, rst proposed by Robinson [3] is
both simple and eective: opposite edges of the reector are pulled towards each other by about
half their original distance and are held by tie cables, see Figure 1. The antenna is designed
to t in the normally unused space at the top of the rocket fairing or around the payload,
its largest stowed dimension being slightly larger than the deployed diameter. Once in orbit,
the tie cables that hold the reector in its packaged conguration are released by pyrotechnic

Lecturer in Structural Mechanics

Professor of Structural Engineering


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charges and the reector deploys dynamically by releasing its stored elastic strain energy. In
order to be folded elastically, a parabolic dish needs to have low stiness, however in general
low stiness in a structure is accompanied by low shape accuracy.
The manufacturing process of thin shell carbon ber reinforced plastic (CFRP) reectors
result in residual stresses which cause large distortions in such highly exible structures. These
distortions are typically of the order of D/100 in an unstiened thin parabolic dish. We have
recently proposed [7] a general method of stiening the reector, and hence correcting the
distortions, without changing the simplicity of its folding and deployment behaviour. The
stiening in the deployed conguration is achieved by the addition of a skirt or ange around
the rim of the dish. Key to this stiening scheme are the slits or cuts inserted into the skirt
which allow localised elastic buckling of this skirt, hence signicantly reducing the stiness of
the reector when it is being packaged. We demonstrated this approach for small-scale plastic
reectors, and showed both by nite-element simulation and on physical models that order-
of-magnitude increases in stiness could be achieved [8]. This paper extends the concept to
large (4.6m diameter) and small scale reectors manufactured from triaxially woven CFRP
composite.
Figure 1: Small scale model reector, deployed and folded.
2 Reector Concept
The stiened reector scheme is based on the idea of preventing the unstiened dish from
deforming in its lowest stiness eigenmode. In the case of an open cap shell this eigenmode
is the inextensional or rst bending mode sketched in Figure 2 (a). Connecting on a second
shell in the form of a planar ring, Figure 2 (b), whose lowest stiness eigenmode is incompatible
with that of the rst shell has the eect of substantially increasing the stiness of the open cap
shell. It is therefore, a very ecient way of increasing the stiness of the structure. The exact
shape of the second shell is not crucial, hence variations of this method of stiening would be
2
(a) Spherical cap (b) Stiener
Figure 2: Lowest stiness, incompatible eigenmodes of a spherical cap and a conical stiening
ring.
to connect a torus, part of a conical shell, or just a straight horizontal stiener. A conical shell
will be chosen, for simplicity. However, the problem of attaching a continuous stiener to a
reector dish, is that it makes the reector so sti that it can no longer be folded elastically.
This problem was addressed by introducing four circumferential slits between the stiener and
the rim of the dish, resulting in a structure whose stiness can be tuned as required [8]. The
tuneable parameters are the stieners width, angle and the slit lengths. A particular feature
that is obtained for suciently long slits is that the unsupported lengths of the stiener are
able to buckle while the reector is being folded, thus decreasing the force required to fold the
reector. A potentially negative eect of introducing cuts in any structure is that they may
result in high stress concentrations. However these can be eliminated by designing out sharp
edges and/or by controlling the stiness distribution near the cuts [7].
3 Small scale Physical Model
In order to verify both the manufacturing process and the applicability of the triaxially woven
CFRP material, a small scale 0.45 m diameter breadboard model, Fig. 1 was constructed and
tested.
3.1 Material
Triaxial weaves, which consist of three instead of two sets (bi-axial weave) of yarn have been
found to have nearly isotropic elastic moduli [1, 5], high in plane shear rigidity, and are more
conformable. Triaxial woven fabrics (TWF) with 0

, +60

, 60

orientations can be woven in


the basic or bi-plain weave patterns. The basic weave pattern results in hexagonal open hole
sections while the bi-plain weave has no open hole sections. Hence, basic weaves have lower
bre volume fractions and consequently a lower mass per unit area.
The triaxially woven fabric is SK-802 from Sakase-Adtech Ltd., Japan which is woven from
Toray T-300 yarns at orientations of +60,0,-60 in the basic weave pattern. T-300 bers have a
tensile strength of 3.5 GPa, elongation to break of 1.5% and modulus of 230 GPa. The matrix
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of the composite is Hexcel 913 from Hexcel Composites, UK, which has a low temperature cure
cycle (125
o
C).
The nal composite, SK-802/913 has a thickness of 0.13 mm, a measured density of 920
kg/m
3
, Youngs modulus of 29.4 GPa and a tensile strength of 250 MPa, and a maximum strain
in bending of 2.3%.
Matsumoto [2] has experimentally shown triaxially woven CFRP composites to have, on
the whole, good RF characteristics for reectors operating up to Ka-band (30 GHz), with near
zero coecient of thermal expansion (CTE).
3.2 Physical Model & Results
This preliminary model was manufactured by a resin lm infusion (RFI) process, in which
triaxial dry fabric was laid up interleaved with layers of semi-solid resin lm supplied on a
release paper. The lay-up is then heated to allow the resin to rst melt and then ow into
the fabric. After an allotted amount of cooling time in the refrigerator, the release paper is
removed. Last but not least the entire structure is cured in an autoclave. The resulting 1/10
th
model which was constructed from a single ply of triaxially woven CFRP has a mass of only
30 grammes.
Packaging tests on the reector using an INSTRON machine have shown an initial stiness
of 0.0542 N/mm and a maximum packaging force of less than 0.195 N.
4 Large Scale Reector
4.1 Distortion
The manufacturing process of ultra thin CFRP structures leaves behind residual stresses that
can produce large shape distortions. To capture the eect of the stiener, a comparison is
made with a reector without the stiener (unstiened reector).
Based on the assumption that the stiened and unstiened reectors will experience similar
amounts of residual cooling stresses, these distortions were modelled by applying the equivalent
forces required to cause the magnitudes of distortion that are typically observed in practice. A
distortion amplitude of 5.59 mm was assumed (for a dish without a stiener), which manifests
as an ovalization of the dish, Figure 3. This deformation can be produced in the unstiened
dish by means of two equal and diametrically opposite forces of only 0.06 N. Considering the
aperture of the reector, D = 4.6 m, these forces which are equivalent to masses of 6 grammes
are minuscule. These forces were then imposed on a stiened reector with a horizontal stiener
of width, w = 120 mm, hinge slit angle, = 16

, load slit angle, = 12

and stiener thickness


of t
s
= 1.676 mm. It is interesting to note that this stiener increases the fundamental bending
4
mode by more than 10 fold. The stiened reector design results in a maximum distortion in
the z direction of 0.068 mm (see Figure 4) roughly 1/80
th
the distortion experienced by the
unstiened reector.
1
2
3
5.59mm
(a) Plan view
1 2
3
5.59 mm
(b) Side elevation
Figure 3: Distortion of reector without stiener (magnied by 20). The deformed shape is
drawn in black.
1
2
3
0.068 mm
(a) Plan view
1 2
3
0.068 mm
(b) Side elevation
Figure 4: Distortion of reector with stiener (magnied by 1000). The deformed shape is
drawn in black.
4.2 Shape Accuracy
The root mean square (rms) surface accuracy of the distorted reectors was determined by
using the least squares method [6] to solve for the best t paraboloid, hence minimizing the
distance between the surface of the paraboloid and the nodes of the distorted reector.
The eective rms error [4] is given by

e
=
1
1 +

D
4F

i=1
A
i
( z
i
z
i
)
2
n

i=1
A
i
(1)
5
where A
i
is the surface area associated with the i
th
node, z
i
is the z coordinate of the best
t paraboloid, D is the plan diameter, F the focal length and n the total number of nodes,
for this case 20,000. The rms error of the unstiened reector with its distortions due to
residual strains was found to be 1.82 mm. The addition of the stiener reduces this error to
0.1041 mm, a reduction by a factor of 17.6 compared to the unstiened reector. It should
also be noted that the surface accuracy of the perfect reector i.e. the undistorted FE mesh,
is 1.6017 10
5
mm. This is basically a measure of how well the triangular shell elements
approximate the given parabolic shape, and is hence a very accurate representation.
5 Results & Conclusions
The unstiened reector has a mass of 15.37 kg and a deployed fundamental frequency of
0.432 Hz, while the stiened reector has a mass of 18.18 kg and fundamental bending frequency
of 4.755 Hz. Hence the stiener makes up 15% of the mass of the reector but increases the
deployed stiness by more than 10 fold and the manufacturing distortions by about 80-fold. The
increased surface accuracy of the stiened reector can potentially increase its operating range
past its original specication of Ka band (30 GHz) up to 60 GHz
1
. Hence the reector concept
allows for a high accuracy light weight reector which is sti in the deployed conguration yet
exible enough to be folded elastically and passively deployed.
References
[1] Fujita, A., Hamada, H., and Maekawa, Z. Tensile properties of carbon ber triaxial woven fabric
composites. Journal of Composite Materials 27, 15 (1993), 14281442.
[2] Matsumoto, T., Kiuchi, N., and Watanabe, A. Light weight graphite fabric for satellite rectors. In
Journes Internationales de Nice sur les Antennes International Symposium on Antennas (November 2002),
vol. 2, Journes Internationales de Nice sur les Antennes, pp. 5760.
[3] Robinson, S. A. Simplied spacecraft antenna reector for stowage in conned envelopes. Publication
number: 0534110A1, 31 March 1993. European Patent Application led by Hughes Aircraft Company.
[4] Ruze, J. Antenna tolerance theory a review. IEEE 54, 4 (April 1966), 633640.
[5] Skelton, J. Triaxially woven fabrics: Their structure and properties. Textile Research Journal 41, 8 (August
1971), 637647.
[6] Strang, G. Linear algebra and its applications, third ed. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers,
San Diego, U.S.A., 1988.
[7] Tan, L. T. Thin-Walled Elastically Foldable Reector Structures. PhD thesis, Department of Engineering,
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, UK, December 2002.
[8] Tan, L. T., and Pellegrino, S. Stiness design for spring back reectors. In 43rd
AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference (Denver Col-
orado, 22-25 April 2002). AIAA 2002-1498.
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using a stringent accuracy goal of /50
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