Simulation and analysis of flexible solar panels’ deployment and locking processes

To predict the attitude of satellite during the whole deployment process and evaluate the lockingimpact, a numerical flexible model of a certain satellite associated with four flexible honeycomb solar panelswas established. The flexible solar panel was modeled by the finite element analysis (FEA), and the motionequations were derived by Lagrangian formulation. The locking process was based on the method of Hertziancontact, which enables one to predict the locking impact on the satellite and the subsequent oscillation of solarpanels. The results reveal that locking operation has great impact on the attitude of the satelhte, and theangular acceleration of satellite reaches 22.03 °/s2 at the locking moment; the flexible solar panels model isfeasible to predict the accurate response of the satelhte during deployment and the oscillation of solar panels;the instantly impulsive force occurred during locking process is about 1.5 kN and the changing time is nearly0.32 s. It provides an effective approach to present the flexible solar panels' deployment process and evaluatethe locking impact.