Session: 02-03-01: Studies in Aerospace Structural Dynamics

Paper Number: 103965

103965 - Design of In-Space 3d Printable Spacecraft Incorporating Metamaterial Technologies 

This work presents novel design concepts of solar arrays 3D printed in space that break free from the limitations of conventional launch loads and deployability. The spacecraft is designed to be mass-efficient, stable, and resilient with high precision. To this end, different metamaterial concepts are utilized to enhance stiffness, damping, and robustness to fracture of the spacecraft by developing and integrating dissipative metamaterials and  "crumpled" structures. In effect, we demonstrate numerically and experimentally that crumpling of a flat plate, either in the ordered or unordered optimized manner, considerably increases its stiffness with a minimal mass cost and consequently enhances the precision of the host spacecraft. Further, we design, optimize, and validate experimentally mass-efficient and highly stiff dissipative metamaterial structural elements (beams, plates, joints) that make use of viscoelastic materials to induce and enhance structural damping. In fact, we prove that an “informed” and efficient introduction of viscoelastic materials in the metamaterial structural elements results in superior simultaneous (spatiotemporal) damping and stiffness properties, unlike conventional materials. Additionally, we also explore and characterize the mechanical properties of different combinations of printable and/or space-grade materials to achieve the desired optimal metaproperties. Then, we integrate the different metamaterial technological solutions into the design of a large 1MW solar array made of a crumpled plate that is supported via a lightweight truss. The crumpled plate supports the solar cell arrays and is stabilized thanks to viscoelastic strips along the valley “creases” of the plate. The truss is made of the developed viscoelastic metamaterial beams, which contribute to the structural damping. The solar array design is optimized numerically by varying its geometrical and material parameters in a mass-stiffness-damping metric space and assessed in terms of structural integrity and post-damage precision under space-level accelerations. For experimental validation proposes, (numerical) scaling analysis of the optimal solar array design is conducted to identify the corresponding geometrical and material scaling laws. Finally, a lab-scale mock-up of the solar array design is fabricated and validated via static and dynamic (experimental modal analysis) experiments in ambient air and a vacuum chamber. The experiments are proved to validate their corresponding numerical models and, therefore, the full-scale model via the established scaling laws. Hence, it is concluded that high mass efficiency, stiffness, damping, and precision are achievable with the proposed design of the 3D-printable solar array. It is also envisioned that the developed metamaterial technologies can serve for the design of spacecrafts that requires higher precision and resiliency, such as radio-frequency antennas and optical systems.

Presenting Author: Othman Oudghiri-Idrissi University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Presenting Author Biography: Dr. Othman Oudghiri-Idrissi is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the mechanical engineering department of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is currently working on the design and development of next generation space structures based on metamaterials. His main research interests include metamaterials/ architected materials, waves in complex media, origami engineering, inverse problems and non-destructive evaluation.

Dr. Othman Oudghiri-Idrissi earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 2021. He obtained his M.Sc. in Civil Engineering from École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, France in 2016. He earned a Civil Engineering Diploma from École Hassania des Travaux Publics, Morocco in 2015.

Authors:

Othman Oudghiri-Idrissi University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Avinkrishnan A. Vijayachandran University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
James P. Mcinerney University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Andrea A. Poli University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Wei-Chun Lu University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Hrishikesh Danawe University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Xiaoming Mao University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Anthony M. Waas University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Ellen Arruda University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Serife Tol University of Michigan, Ann Arbor