Investigation of thermal distortion of the twenty five-meter inflatable reflect antenna

Gossamer space structures are relatively large, flimsy, and lightweight. As a result, they are more easily affected or distortion by space thermal environments compared to other space structures. This study examines the structural integrity of a 25m Ka-Band Inflatable/Self-Rigidizable Reflect Antenna under space thermal environments. A new type of deployable antenna was investigaed. Temperature field analysis method of the developable antenna reflector on orbit environment is presented, which simulates physical characteristic of developable antenna reflector with a high precision. The different kinds of analysis denote that different thermal elastic characteristics of different materials. We use PCL language to make a programme, which can be used to link the data for transient temperature field and distortion analysis. The three-dimension multi-physics coupling transient thermal distortion equations for the antenna are founded based on the Galerkins method . A detailed mechanical design, thermal analysis, and thermal distortion of the antenna are discussed in this article. For a reflector on geosynchronous orbit, the transient temperature field results from this method are compared with these from ordinary FEM softwares. It follows from the analysis that the precision of this method is high. Results reveal that the temperature levels of the developable antenna reflector alternate greatly in the orbital period, which is about ±120° when considering solar flux, earth radiating flux and albedo scattering flux. The distortion of the antenna is lower than ordinary deployable antenna.