Development of Composite Tape-Springs for Deployable Structures

In this paper, development of tape-springs made of composite materials was conducted for the deployment structures along with design, analysis, fabrication, and numerical and experimental investigation of mechanical behavior of the tape-springs. To this end, the tape-springs were manufactured according to three stacking patterns, and numerical and experimental investigation were conducted to determine whether or not they were damaged during bending with various selected composite materials. Finally, optimal stacking patterns that do not cause damage were selected during bending. With this information, the four-point bending test was conducted to obtain the moment-rotation curves. From results, it was confirmed that the nonlinear hysteresis phenomenon of the tape-springs was properly realized according to folding and unfolding. Therefore, it was confirmed that the composite material tape spring was properly developed.