Abstract
Recently, many researchers of space structures are focused on large deployable membrane structures which are lightweight and can be stowed in small volumes. One of the basic deployment methods of membrane structures is centrifugal deployment. The method unfurls and stabilizes the structure only by centrifugal force. Therefore, understanding the dynamic property of rotating membranes has been an important subject. In this study, vibration modes of a rotating circular membrane were investigated by forced excitation experiment. An experimental equipment which could rotate and shake a membrane simultaneously in vacuum were created by utilizing a rotary ball spline and a small shaker. Excitation experiment was performed with a wide range of rotation and excitation frequencies. Some resonance phenomena were observed and modal frequencies and shapes of several vibration modes were obtained. The experimental results were compared with analytical results which were obtained by the author employing the membrane theory of shell of revolution and taking account of buckling of thin membrane to examine the correlation between them.
