Self-Standing Truss with Hard-Point-Enhanced Large Deployable Mesh Reflectors

Abstract

A new structural design method is developed in this paper to improve the surface accuracy and enhance the performance of large deployable mesh reflectors. A self-standing truss with hard points (SSTHP), which is an additive pin-jointed structure, is composed of bar members and has zero internal mechanisms. The nodes of an SSTHP are hard points with little displacements when the stiffness of the structure is high in all directions. Through the implementation of the SSTHP, high surface accuracy, large effective region area, and nearly uniform member tension distribution are simultaneously achieved in the design of the reflecting surface of a deployable mesh reflector. The inclusion of the SSTHP also reduces the shape distortions of the reflecting surface caused by the deformation of the supporting structure. Those reflector performance enhancements obtained by the proposed design method are demonstrated in numerical simulations.