Composite material designs for lightweight space packaging structures

Abstract

This paper presents a study on advanced material designs suitable for lightweight space packaging structures. During this study, several material designs were proposed, evaluated and in the end three packaging structures were designed, manufactured and validated through a test campaign. The material designs proposed consisted in hybrid laminates composed of a composite substrate and integrating metallic foils with high atomic number (Low Z - High Z - Low Z concept) and metallic coatings to increase the structure’s protection against harsh space conditions. The packaging structure design selected was a 2U CubeSat. A FEM analysis was performed on two different designs which showed good mechanical resistance under static loads, and regarding the modal analysis, the natural vibration frequencies of the CubeSat were in the imposed limits (outside of the critical range of 1-125 Hz). To reproduce the dynamic environment encountered during launching stage, vibration tests were performed. The structures were validated through a test campaign (vibration tests) and their first vibration mode overcomes 100 Hz, results predicted by the FEM analysis.

Keywords

• polymeric composites
• space structures
• metallic coating
• CubeSat
• FEA 
• FEA