Solar sail elastic displacement effects on interplanetary trajectories

Interplanetary CubeSats system for space weather evaluations and technology demonstration

“…the 6U CubeSats system, equipped with an ideal solar sail. An ideal solar sail reflects all the incoming radiation and is not interested by deformation that influences the thrust vector and consequently the sailcraft trajectory [16,17].…”

Solar sail structural analysis via improved finite element modeling

“…The interest for a practical realization of a solar sail is also drawn by many academic projects that are going to accomplish scale models of these propulsion systems. [15][16][17][18] From a structural viewpoint, the analysis of a complex space structure such as a solar sail makes large use of commercial techniques and softwares, which are commonly used in the design of more conventional aeronautical and mechanical structures. Even though the modern software packages for finite element analysis (FEA) represent essential tools for the preliminary design of aerospace structures, the peculiarity of a solar sail structure, such as the wide reflecting surface with a very small thickness and the long and slender stiffening booms, gives rise to a number of challenging problems both in the modeling and in the analysis phase.…”

“…The interest for a practical realization of a solar sail is also drawn by many academic projects that are going to accomplish scale models of these propulsion systems. 15–18…”

Finite element analysis of solar sail force model with mission application

“…11,12 An interesting and thorough discussion of the available literature about this method applied to solar sails can be found in the review paper by Fu et al. 5 Other studies about a square sail configuration, with special attention to the interaction between the sail shape and the thrust characteristics, are available in Campbell and Thomas, 13 Murphy et al., 14 Ingrassia et al., 15 Canfield et al., 16 Peloni et al., 17 Sleight and Muheim, 18 and Greschik and Mikulas. 19…”

“…A possible solution to this problem is to calculate the thrust vector characteristics, as a function of the sail attitude, by means of a finite element (FE) analysis. 11,12 An interesting and thorough discussion of the available literature about this method applied to solar sails can be found in the review paper by Fu et al 5 Other studies about a square sail configuration, with special attention to the interaction between the sail shape and the thrust characteristics, are available in Campbell and Thomas, 13 Murphy et al, 14 Ingrassia et al, 15 Canfield et al, 16 Peloni et al, 17 Sleight and Muheim, 18 and Greschik and Mikulas. 19 In this context, Boni et al 20 have recently proposed a technique for the deformation analysis of a square solar sail under realistic loading conditions, with the aid of the commercial software ABAQUS V 6.11.…”