Structural Dynamics Analysis of 3-U CubeSat

Abstract

The development of CubeSats has been advanced significantly during the past two decades for both scientific research and industrial purposes. During the manufacturing process, every CubeSat must satisfy various system requirements in which the structural analysis is one of the most vital necessity in order to assure a normal operation of the CubeSat during its working time in space. In the conceptual design phase, structural dynamics is a mandatory step to determine the natural frequencies of individual bodies, the deformation and stress induced at the corresponding vibration modes to prevent structural failure. In this work, IGOSat, a 3-Unit CubeSat, which was developed at the Paris Diderot University is exanimated in term of modal, harmonic response, and random vibration analysis at the time of ground testing as well as the launching phase using ANSYS software. These numerical simulations conducted according to the CubeSat Design Specification and the system requirements of QB50 project. The minimum natural frequency of the CubSat obtained to be 363.17 (Hz), which passed the required frequency of 90 (Hz). Moreover, the Harmonic and Random vibration analyses indicate that the peak response of normal stress, as well as deformation values obtained, are far lesser compared to the yield strength of the frame structure and subsystem materials. Hence, our numerical analysis found that the CubeSat remains intact during the launch environment.