Thermo-Elastic Analysis of a Spiral Dish Antenna Reflector In Space

Master thesis (2022)

Authors

N.J.B. van der Wielen Aerospace Engineering

Contributors

J. Guo Space Systems Egineering (mentor)
I. Uriol Balbin Aerospace Structures & Computational Mechanics - Aerospace Engineering (mentor)
Faculty
Aerospace Engineering, Aerospace Engineering
Copyright: © 2022 Nathan van der Wielen
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Published Date

03-10-2022

Language

English

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Faculty

Aerospace Engineering

Abstract

At the Technical University of Delft(TU Delft), a Kirigami inspired method of spirally deploying a coiled up band into a parabolic reflector is being studied for its use in space.
This thesis performs a thermo-elastic analysis on the spiral dish Antenna (SDA) using a combination of ESATAN-TMS, Abaqus, and python scripting. After analysing a reflector for different low earth orbital cases in ESATAN, the heat fluxes are transferred to Abaqus to perform a second thermal analysis. A base SDA is modelled with an Aluminum zipper and Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP) band. The SDA is shown to experience temperatures ranging from 175K to 375K with temperature changes of 100K in less than 100s.
The reflector can experiences maximum temperature deltas of 93K across the reflector at a single moment during orbit. These temperature changes cause the SDA to have a maximum displacement of 20mm with a maximum root mean square (RMS) of 6mm. This thesis also shows the creation of a cross pattern on the SDA most likely created by the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch between the zipper and band material. An improved SDA is modelled after an initial parametrization, showing an improvement to the displacement field with the max RMS being around 1mm.
This thesis shows how the base model of the SDA deforms into an cross pattern and experience high displacement regions near the end of the spiral interface. This version of the SDA is shown to not be able to perform in space. A short parametrization analysis with regards to materials choice, spiral geometry, and
thickness does show a path in which the SDA can perform similarly to a normal reflector with the same design parameters.