Abstract
Lightweight deployable structures are required in many space missions. The numerical analysis of deployable space structures is becoming more and more necessary and a software tool supporting this activity, from the preliminary design to the final verification, has thus a clear interest in space industry. The goal of the DESCAS (DEployment Simulation of Complex Antenna Structures) ESA project was to get accurate solutions for those mathematically stiff problems. The main results of this project are presented in this paper, highlighting the capability of the implicit non-linear finite element approach to model efficiently and simulate the dynamic behavior of flexible deployable systems. Two industrial benchmarks are presented. The first one is a Large Deployable Reflector Antenna developed by Thales Alenia Space and the Russian-Georgian subcontractor NPO-EGS. The second one is a deployable antenna based on a Tape-Spring hinge concept, proposed by EADS Astrium Satellites
