Nonflatness of Solar Sail Membrane Predicted by Nonlinear Finite Element Analyses

This paper identifies the possible causes of two phenomena observed in the membrane of the solar sail IKAROS: its nonflat shape and high out-of-plane stiffness. IKAROS’ flight data showed that the sail was significantly nonflat. In addition, the out-of-plane deformation of the membrane was smaller than that predicted preflight by numerical simulations, which indicates higher out-of-plane stiffness than expected. This study hypothesized that the initial deformation of the membrane could have been induced by the curvatures of the thin film solar cells and the reflection control devices attached on the sail. The effects of the curvatures on the sail shape were examined through geometrically nonlinear finite element analyses of a 1/4 IKAROS membrane with shell elements. The analysis results indicated that the on-orbit IKAROS membrane could be nonflat owing to the propagation of wrinkles throughout the membrane induced by the curvature of the thinfilm components. Furthermore, the out-of-plane deformation of the sail under solar pressure became very small when the entire sail was wrinkled, which explains IKAROS’ on-orbit phenomena.

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