Thermally Induced Vibration Analysis of Flexible Solar Wing

Flexible solar wings of large scale have been used to provide electricity for spacecrafts. When the solar wings running on orbits with spacecrafts, they suffer from periodic thermal loads. And the thermal loads will cause thermal deformations of the solar wings, even thermal vibrations. Finite element method and equivalent displacement method were utilized to investigate the thermally induced vibration of flexible solar wing. Some Python programs were written to implement pre- and post-processing for finite element analysis. The thermally induced vibration analysis method was verified by composite laminate, and it is proved that the method is accurate. Dynamic responses of a flexible solar wing under thermal loads were analysed, and the effect of the thermal loads on the flexible solar wing were illustrated by the displacement responses of some points of the flexible solar wing. The rigid-flexible coupling phenomenon of flexible solar wing was found by the displacement responses. The thermally induced vibration analysis with finite element method was accurate and efficient.