Elastic Folding of Shell Structures

Abstract

The current trend in the aerospace industry is towards deployable structures that are simpler, and hence cheaper and more reliable. Therefore, structures that require movable joints are being replaced by flexible structures that can be folded elastically. Thin shell structures are the ideal choice for this because, provided that folding does not involve a significant amount of mid-surface stretching, the stresses due to bending can be made as small as required to avoid yielding of the material, by choosing a sufficiently small thickness for the shell. Two examples of this “new” type of deployable structures will be discussed in this chapter.