Development of Concentrated Strain Based Deployable Truss Structures

The objective of this research is to develop a novel deployable hierarchical truss architecture composed of extruded carbon fiber reinforced plastic CFRP rod and shape memory alloy SMA flexure elements this structural system is representative of a concentrated material deformation based deployable architecture. The scope of this study encompasses applying fundamental principles of rational truss design, relevant to all deployable structures, first to prove the concept at the individual element level, then to design the packaging kinematics, and finally, evaluate and scale the global performance of the system. Aspects of the architecture for tackle to further develop the truss concept, including manufacturing technology, experimental analysis, and the deployment scheme, will be reported in manuscripts to appear. Technology addressed through this research is intended to foster and mature successive large, launch-packaged concentrated strain structures.