Folding behaviour of a deployable composite cabin for space habitats - part 1: Experimental and numerical investigation

Recently, demands for space habitats have increased significantly with the growth of space applications for micro-gravity investigation and space travel. Therefore, there is an urgent need for feasible and practical space habitats to satisfy humanity's growing demands for deep space exploration. This paper and its companion paper propose a deployable composite cabin (DCC) and present a comprehensive study on the folding behaviour of the DCC. Part 1 provides the conceptual design of the DCC and verifies the effectiveness and feasibility of the DCC through the experimental method and numerical simulation. The DCC can achieve folding and deployment functions through elastic deformation in the large deformation process. Using T300/epoxy unidirectional reinforced prepreg as raw material, DCC specimens were prepared by the autoclave moulding process. The experimental fixture was designed and the large deformation folding function of the DCC was successfully verified. The load–displacement curves with typical three stages were obtained. In addition, based on the Riks method and the static method, a finite element analysis (FEA) model was established to predict the folding behaviour of the DCC. The geometric nonlinearity and initial imperfection were considered in the FEA model. The numerical simulation results were in good agreement with the experimental results.