What is it about?
Some types of composite slit tube are bistable in that they are happy being both extended and coiled up like a tape measure. These structures are very light and have high packaging efficiencies. Past work thus far has investigated how straight slit tubes behave when as they are coiled up, and what the radius of the stable coil would be. My work investigates how curved slit tubes coil up.
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Why is it important?
Although past work in understanding bistable structures has been limited to straight slit tubes, these have found many applications in the sectors of security, civil engineering, energy, mining, consumer, defense and aerospace. Understanding curved slit tube bistability enables new forms of deployable structures which require minimal assembly.
Perspectives
This work represents a good first step towards understanding how non-developable laminated composite slit tubes coil up. It's extremely exciting to think of the possible no-/minimal-assembly applications of such structures, both terrestrial and within my primary area of focus, space applications.
Mr Geoffrey P Knott
University of Surrey
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Modeling the Bistability of Laminated Composite Toroidal Slit Tubes, January 2016, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA),
DOI: 10.2514/6.2016-1499.
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