Measurement and Analytical Modeling of the Deployment Rate of Elastic Memory Composites

Polymer composites that can be folded into different angles and upon reheating come back to their original shapes are called elastic memory composites (EMC). This is particularly attractive for the development of large deployable space-based sensors which can be stowed during launch and deployed in orbit. However, the dynamics of deployment (rate and precision) is important considering the high levels of positional sensitivity of such structures. The rate of deployment of the composite depends on the viscoelastic properties of the EMC polymer and the elastic properties of the fibers. In this paper first the experimental setup for deployment data acquisition and resin viscoelastic properties is discussed and then an analytical prediction model (based on micro-mechanics) is developed. The analytical model is validated by excellent correlation with the deployment test data.