Mechanical characteristics of deployable composite thin-walled lenticular tubes

In this paper, modal behaviors of composite thin-walled lenticular tubes (CTLTs) in free vibration and cantilever vibration are performed by comparing experimental with numerical outcome. Then, a linear and nonlinear buckling analysis of CTLTs subjected to axial compression are proposed to compare their numerical critical buckling loads with corresponding experimental results. The numerical method to simulate buckling behaviors of CTLTs under axial compressions is also verified. As the flattened and wrapped CTLTs need to be deployed completely in space engineering application, the flattening and wrapping process of CTLTs should be studied by using numerical simulation method due to complexity of composite materials. To explore the change rules of mechanical characteristics of CTLTs and facilitate design of CTLTs, the design parameters of CTLTs in vibration analysis, buckling analysis and flattening and wrapping process are all evaluated.