Tape-Spring Rolling Hinges

Alan M. Watt

Outline of Talk
Why build new hinges. What is a tape-spring rolling hinge. Previous designs. Conceptual design. Stiffness of hinge. Moment - rotation properties. Damping. Wire Effects. Applications of hinges.

Why build new hinges

Present designs rely on motors or complex hinge assemblies to drive mechanisms. Heavy. Stiff (large, heavy) support frames required. Unreliable Complex. Require power.

What is a Tape-Spring Rolling Hinge

Benefits of tape-springs: Deployment moment. Locking moment. Very light weight and simple. Good pointing accuracy. Problem: - No constraint when undeployed.

Two arrangements of tape-springs.

Benefits of rolling hinges: Very low friction (rolling contact only). No lubrication required. Constrained deployment.

Aerospatiale Adele Hinge

Very complex. Wide. Locking mechanism required. Complex band tightening mechanism. Heavy 1.1 kG

Astro / JPL Nasa Hinge

Simpler than Aerospatiale hinge. Tightening mechanism simpler. Still very wide. Small locking moment, as tape-springs almost co-planar.

Hinge Design Parameters

R=radius of curvature of tape-spring

Assuming standard tape-springs, there are four variable parameters:

S spacing d offset Three main constraints: r radius L - Length

S-d < r d > s/2

L > 2pR

Can lead to hinge that operates in one direction only.

Calculation of Mmax

Considering Local buckling at point 2. Stress in eccentrically loaded strut = shell buckling stress.

Solve for

and substitute into

Comparison to FE Calculation

Deployed Stiffness of Hinge

Deployed stiffness required for natural frequency analysis and dynamic simulations. Generally require high deployed stiffness and low stowed stiffness.

3 linear stiffnesses: Extensional, in-plane shear (Y), out of plane shear (Z). 3 torsional stiffnesses: Torsional, in-plane bending (about Z), out of plane bending (about Y). Each can be found for tape or rolling hinge on their own as well as the combination.

Extensional Stiffness of Tape-Spring

Dead band caused by play in test set-up

now fixed although no results. Predictions made using FE and beam models. Poor correlation between prediction and experiment. 10 kN/mm to 3 kN/mm respectively.

Extensional Stiffness of Rolling Hinge

Stiffness predicted using FE model made in Pro/Mechanica with 2940 tetra elements and contact surface at join of hinge.

Analysis is only true as long as wires are kept under sufficient tension to maintain compressive contact.

Stiffness results compare reasonably with practical results 1530 N/mm 1040 N/mm.

Extensional Stiffness of Rolling Hinge (cntd)

For faster analysis equivalent bar model using hertzian contact theory was developed.

Hertz theory gives approach (d) of bodies as:

with

Shear Stiffnesses
Out-of-Plane hinge stiffness

Predictions found from finite element analysis and beam bending theory. Good match found for rolling hinge part of hinge but tape-spring results high. Stiffness predominantly arises from tape-spring for out-of-plane direction and rolling hinge for in-plane direction.

Torsional Stiffness

Experimental measurements taken with FSH testing machine with rotating head. Experiments matched predictions reasonably well. Rolling hinge and tape both contribute to stiffness.

Bending Stiffnesses

Predictions found from FE analysis and beam theory. Poor match between predictions and experimental results.

Summary of Results

Practical Results
Direction Tape Rolamite Total Tape

Predictions
Rolamite Total Units

Kxx Kyy Kzz Txx

Tyy Tzz

3660 200 9.66 29

114 102

1530 31.9 115 40

0 86

4414 10363 216 425 134 23 75 31

240 210 426 451

1040 40 160 70
0 735

11402 N/mm 465 N/mm 183 N/mm 101 kNmm/rad

900 1186 kNmm/rad kNmm/rad

Moment - Rotation Properties

Manual data capture. Hard to capture peak moment. Results match FE model well. Redesign of hinge based on data. New automated set-up to be used to obtain peak moment and test hinges of different sizes.

Damping
Two types of Damping: 1) 2) During deployment, to slow the hinge deployment time. At locking, to lower shock transmitted to structure and prevent re-buckling of tape-springs.

A number of damping schemes were considered. There are few that apply true damping without adding greatly to the complexity of the hinge. Constrained layer damping added to tape-springs. Aluminium layer with damping material underneath. Preliminary tests suggest that constrained layer damping is relatively ineffective and that there is a large amount of natural damping in the hinge at locking.

Analysis of Wire Effects

For a given configuration, a straight section of wire tangentially links two points on either side of the hinge. From this the position of the wire can be found for any hinge configuration.

Analysis of Wire Effects (cntd)

Moment - rotation can be found from a number of analytical methods:

Virtual WorkMq=Fe M=2F(L2-L1) M=Rd

Tensioning Hinge

A set-up such as this, with the wire transferring from a large radius to a small one provides a moment (due to tensioning of wires) proportional to rotation. Can be applied to current hinge design simply by cutting some of the grooves deeper than others, to increase the moment provided by the hinge.

Moment is still proportional to rotation and work is ongoing to find layout to give near linear moment.

Dynamic Modelling
Model made for Pro/Mechanica simulation of deployments.

Hinge acts as two pin joints separated by a constant distance.

Joint angles forced to be equal or gear pair added.

Dynamic Modelling (Cntd)

Applications of New Hinges

Deployable solar panels with cold mirrors for QinetiQ (formerly DERA). Deployable Synthetic Aperture Radar for QinetiQ. Deployable Synthetic Aperture Radar for Astrium (formerly Matra Marconi Space). Deployable Radiator for Astrium.