Improving the Natural Frequency of Bistable Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic Tubes for Space Applications

This paper describes the scalability analysis of bistable Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) tubes for space applications, with the aim of attaining a better understanding of the scaling laws of Bistable Reeled Composite (BRC) tubes. BRCs with substantially higher natural frequency are designed. The application for this work is a deployable solar array, which uses two BRC tubes to support a membrane containing flexible photovoltaic cells. Novel types of bistable tubes with stepped thickness changes, tapered diameter and reduced included angle are proposed to improve the natural frequency. Finite Element (FE) modelling and experimental verification have been used to study the vibration characteristics of the proposed BRC tubes. An FE model is combined with an optimization loop to improve the natural frequency with respect to the fibre angles within the laminate of the bistable tubes. The results demonstrate that the introduction of step changes in laminate thickness at certain locations, and careful selection of fibre angles can significantly improve the natural frequency.