Buckling analysis and experiment of cantilever thin-walled lenticular CFRP space boom

The thin-walled lenticular CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic) space boom operates as a cantilever. The two symmetry axils of cross section were taken as neutral axils respectively. The loading tests were performed and the load was applied at the cantilever tip. The external buckling load and the stability of the cantilever lenticular boom were obtained simultaneously. A linear eigenvalue buckling analysis was performed by using the ABAQUS, the linear buckling modes were seeded subsequently as an initial geometrical imperfection of the boom, and the non-linear buckling analysis was conducted finally with load at the cantilever end. The results show that the initial geometrical imperfection has significant effects on buckling behavior while the proper geometrical imperfection seeded to the ideal perfect model can simulate the practical boom. A parametric analysis was done to evaluate the critical buckling load and buckling behavior, such as thickness, number of plies and slenderness. This paper can provide valuable reference for the optimization design of thin-walled CFRP lenticular spaceboom.