Buckling Analysis of Long Booms with Initial Geometric Imperfections

Abstract

Long, thin-walled booms are basic building elements of ultra-light-weight space inflatable structures. Buckling of long booms is critical to the performance and reliability of such space structures. Due to fabrication and packaging process, long booms of a space inflatable structure may have geometric and material imperfections. These imperfections can significantly reduce the buckling load of a boom. Accurate prediction of the buckling loads of long booms with initial imperfections is essentially important to the design of space inflatable structures. This paper presents an analytical method that obtains the buckling solutions of long booms with arbitrary geometric imperfections through use of a Distributed Transfer Function Method (DTFM). The proposed method is capable of modeling different imperfections and constraints, does not depend on discretization or infinite series for solution, and is numerically accurate and efficient. The proposed method is illustrated in several numerical examples.