Design and optimization of automatic conveying equipment for cargo bags of cargo spacecraft

Abstract

Cargo transportation equipment is commonly used for ground loading in aerospace. Taking flexible cargo bags as a transport carriers and taking a cargo ship hatch as the target container, a kind of cargo bag transportation system is designed according to the transportation process and function requirements. On the basis of the analysis of structure and working procedure, the working principle of the mechanical subsystem as well as the structure design of key components is proposed in detail. To improve the performance of support plate’s stiffness, a topological optimization is implemented and the optimized result is hence achieved. Finite element simulation shows that the performance of the stiffness is improved significantly. The approach presented in this research benefits the design of cargo transportation equipment.