Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Wrinkling Pattern for Aerospace Laminated Membrane Structures

Abstract

Al-polymer laminated membranes are widely used in large aerospace structures. When the laminated membranes are pressurized, wrinkles emerge, which have an important effect on the performance of the structures during operation. This paper describes the numerical simulation and experimental investigation of wrinkles in laminated membranes. The nonlinear postbuckling analysis method, based on laminated thin-shell elements, was used to simulate the onset, growth, and final configuration of wrinkles when laminated membranes are subjected to external loads. The simulations are conducted with the ANSYS finite element package. Changing regularities of number, wavelength, and range for the wrinkles during the onset and growth processes are investigated. The wrinkles of laminated membranes with different design parameters such as material selection, ply number, ply angle, and ply mode are predicted. Devices that can be used to clamp and load laminated membranes in several load cases were designed and developed. A 3D photogrammetry system was constructed to characterize wrinkling patterns of laminated membranes subjected to shear displacement loads. By comparing the results of numerical analysis and experimental results, the accuracy of the numerical analysis method was verified. This study work is expected to inform wrinkling simulation and shape control of aerospace laminated membrane structures.

Numerical analysis of dynamic properties of wrinkled thin membranes

“…The present literature, however, was mainly concerned about the static behavior of a membrane, e.g. wrinkling patterns (Miyamura, 2000; Wong and Pellegrino, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c; Lecieux and Bouzidi, 2010; Atai and Steigmann, 2012, 2014; Taylor et al , 2014; Lan et al , 2014; Patil et al , 2015), wrinkling evolution (Wong and Pellegrino, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c; Wang et al , 2012, 2013a, 2013b) or transition (Davidovitch et al , 2011; Taylor et al , 2015), wrinkling location (Atai and Steigmann, 2012, 2014; Wang et al , 2014), stress distribution (Li et al , 2012; Huang et al , 2015; Senda et al , 2015), wrinkling critical load (Li, 2008; Wang et al , 2013b), post-wrinkling bearing capacity (Deng and Pellegrino, 2012; Hong et al , 2017), optimum design to eliminate wrinkles (Li et al , 2017; Liu et al , 2017; Luo et al , 2017), etc. A limited number of documents investigated the dynamic properties or dynamic responses of a membrane when its constitutive relationship was elastic (Hasheminejad et al , 2011; DasGupta and Tamadapu, 2013), orthotropic (Liu et al , 2013a, 2013b, 2016), hyperelastic (Soares and Gonçalves, 2012; Chaudhuri and DasGupta, 2014) or viscoelastic (Katsikadelis, 2012), or when it was subjected to impact loads (Liu et al , 2016), axial movement (Shin et al , 2005, 2006) or dynamic extension (Tuzela and Erbay, 2004).…”