New Designs for Modular Ultra-Light Precision Space Structures

Shell structures with cutouts are widely used in architectural and engineering applications. For thin, lightweight, and deployable space structures, cutouts are cleverly positioned to fold and store the structure in a small volume. To maintain shape accuracy, these structures must fold without becoming damaged and must be stiff in their deployed configurations. Intuitive designs often fail to satisfy these two requirements. This research proposes solutions to the topology optimization of composite, thin shell structures with cutouts. First, a novel optimization algorithm was developed that makes no assumptions on the initial number, shape, and location of cutouts on deployable thin shells. The algorithm uses a density-based approach, which distributes the material within the structure by assigning a density parameter to discretized locations. This parametrization of the design domain allows for the finding of new features and the connectivity of the domain, thus providing a completely general formulation to the optimization problem. The goal is to study the effects of volume and stress constraints imposed in a deformed configuration of thin shell structures. While classical topology optimization studies focus on finding solutions to linear problems, this method is applicable to geometrically nonlinear problems and implements stress constraints in the deformed, and hence most stressed, configuration of these shells. A mathematical formulation of the optimization problem and interpolation schemes for stiffness tensor, volume, and stress are developed. A sensitivity analysis of objective function, volume, and stress constraints is provided. Finally, solutions for a thin plate and a tape spring are proposed. Density-based methods are computationally expensive when applied to large structures and complex shapes because of the large number of design variables. To address these challenges, two optimization methods that provide more specific solutions to the problem of composite, deployable shells are proposed. The first method uses level sets to parametrize the cutouts, thereby restricting the design space and simultaneously limiting the number of design variables. This greatly reduces the computational cost. Using this approach, successful solutions are found for stiff, composite, thin shells with complex shapes that can fold without becoming damaged. The second method uses a spline representation of the contour of a single cutout on the shell, thus performing fine tuning of the shape of the cutout. Modeling techniques that simulate localized strain and experimental methods for studying the quasi-static folding of these composite shells are developed. A laminate failure criterion suitable for thin, plain-weave composites is used in simulations to predict the onset of failure in folded shells. Numerical results are validated with folding experiments that demonstrated good agreement with numerical solutions. Lastly, it was discovered that many of the best performing solutions have multiple closely spaced cutouts, as opposed to current designs for deployable space structures that have fewer large cutouts. This leads to the formation of small strips of material between cutouts. Hence, the behavior of thin, plain-weave composite material was characterized and the first study on size-scaling effects at small length scales (≤ 15 mm) in this type of material was performed. Size-scaling effects on stiffness and strength shown in this study were introduced in numerical simulations of deployable thin shells. The study demonstrates that the prediction of the onset of failure in folded shells strongly depends on these size effects. Numerical predictions are corroborated by an experimental investigation of localized damage in thin strips of material forming between cutouts. Deployable shells resulting from the optimization studies are built and tested and localized damage is measured via digital volume correlation techniques. In conclusion, this research provides the first extensive study on topology optimization of deployable, composite thin shells using a geometrically nonlinear model and imposing stress constraints in the deformed configuration. The objective is to find non intuitive shapes of thin shells that can fold without being damaged, while also maximizing the deployed stiffness. The work has demonstrated that size-scaling effects in thin, plain-weave composites at small length scales produce a reduction in stiffness and strength of this type of material, thus affecting predictions of the onset of failure on deployable shell structures.