Fundamental Characteristics of Inflatable Structure Composed of Sealed Multi-Cells

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Inflatable structure is an attractive candidate as ultra-light space structures with high packaging efficiency. They consist of flexible membrane and some components for the deployment. For such pneumatic structure with membrane, the damage of the membrane caused by space debris is one of serious problems for the utilization in space. To solve the problem, multi-cellular inflatable structures are proposed. Inflatable structures composed of multi-cells are robust against the damage of membrane. In this paper, a new type of inflatable cylinder which is composed of sealed multi-cells was investigated. Because deployment of the structure can be driven by the gas pressure of the sealed multi-cells, no complex components such as gas tanks and electric valves are required for the deployment. The fundamental characteristics of the deployment are investigated experimentally. As a result, it is shown that the inflatable cylinder composed of sealed multi-cells can achieve the deployment with simple hold-release mechanism even though some cells are damaged. Furthermore, by applying with inner bellows and outside constraint wires, the deployment sequence can be controlled and almost straight deployment can be realized.
社団法人日本航空宇宙学会の論文