Structure-Preserving Analysis of Skeleton Structure of Solar Sail in the Deploying Process

Abstract

For the simplified dynamic model of the skeleton structure of solar sail in the solar power satellite via arbitrarily large phased array system (SPS-ALPHA) in the deploying process, the symplectic method is employed to simulate the dynamic behaviors of the skeleton structure of solar sail and the characteristic of vibration, the constraints default as well as the energy-preserving of the system are all discussed in this paper.Firstly, the simplified dynamic model of the skeleton structure is established based on the variational principle, which is rewritten in the form of the associated canonical equation in Hamilton framework from the Lagrange equation that describes the deploying process of the skeleton structure of solar sail. And then, the equation is numerically simulated by the symplectic Runge-Kutta method and the classical Runge-Kutta method respectively. Comparing with the classical Runge-Kutta method, the symplectic Runge-Kutta method employed in this paper can preserve the displacement constraint and the system energy well with excellent numerical stability.