Experimental and numerical analysis of bending behaviors of an inflated boom

Increases in satellite launches in the future will emphasize reduction of hardware mass, stowage volume and costs. Inflatable space structures can offer such benefits; they are low packing volume, reduced complexity, and reduced mass, there by reducing launch vehicle needs. Reduced costs are realized in development and production as well as in enabling smaller launch vehicle size. Enable the development of large antennas, solar sails, sunshields and etc. Inflatable tubes as an important component have been used for bearing the weight of the structure. Investigate on its mechanical property is very significant. In this paper, we provide a bending simulation method by ANSYS modeling of thin film inflatable tube. In the simulation, the limited moment, wrinkled moment and bending stiffness are investigated. And the bending stiffness has no relation with pressure. When the inflatable tube is wrinkled, only the wrinkled part is bent, while the other part is straight. The result of the experiment shows that the displacement is nearly the same with the same load before the buckling force generates in different pressure, but the displacements are quite different after the buckling force generates, the state can not be predicted. So the buckling force is important to the inflatable tube, it shows the load-carrying ability of the tube. The bending stiffness could not vary with the pressure before the buckling force occurs. The result of the experiment is nearly the same with that of the simulation.