Research on a new type mechanism to lock and unlock space borne appendages

According to the characteristics of a planer spiral spring that can store much more energy in a small space, a new type mechanism to lock and unlock space borne flexible appendages of various shapes has been developed. This mechanism avoids producing any space waste and has less influence on the position and attitude of the satellite when unlock happens. These flexible appendages should bear the launching condition of impact, over-loading and stochastic vibration, the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been employed to analyse the dynamic properties and dynamic response of this mechanism. The core part of this mechanism is optimised based on the natural frequencies and modes which are calculated by the FEA. The experimental results obtained reveal that this device achieves the design objectives.