A contribution to the study of the precise pressurized structures
- Paper ID
IAF-88-268
- author
- company
Aerospace Department, University of Rome "La Sapienza", Centro Ricerche Aerospaziali
- country
Italy
- year
1988
- abstract
The pressurized structures have always been a very actractive solution for very light and large size construction in space. They are often obtained by means of the sequential pressurization of elements, some of them intended particularly to act as frame or stiffener for the subsequent ones. These elements, as for example the toroidal stiffener of the Contraves antenna, are fundamental for the structure accuracy. The study of their elastic deformation is of a geometric non linear nature, which causes theoretical and practical problems. Here the modélisation of an “exact" toroidal structure made by an elastic homogeneous isotropic membrane is first considered. Then the study is extended to different approximations of the torus obtained by means of developable surfaces. A numerical model is also presented for comparison with the ana lytical results and evaluation of real construction details. The most significant results are shown.