An experimental and numerical study of flattening and wrapping process of deployable composite thin-walled, lenticular tubes

Currently, one challenge of deployable composite thin-walled lenticular tube (CTLT) is to identify its large deformation behaviors in flattening and wrapping process. In this paper, experiments and numerical simulation of flattening and wrapping of composite thin-walled lenticular tube were carried out. Firstly, elastic modulus of CFRP laminate with four-ply (45 degrees/-45 degrees /45 degrees/-45 degrees) was obtained from the uniaxial tensile test and theoretical solutions, results of which achieve a good agreement. Subsequently, the flattening experiments of composite thin-walled lenticular tube segments were performed, their corresponding tip displacements and strains on the surface were also measured in flattening process. Lastly, wrapping experiments of three CTLTs at the length of 700 mm were conducted, in the meantime, strains, deformations and wrapping moments were also measured. By using ABAQUS package, three-dimensional models were employed to numerically simulate the process of flattening and wrapping, effects of geometrical nonlinearity and contact interaction are also taken into account in the process. The results show that the numerical simulation method is available to predict mechanical characteristics of CTLT in its process of flattening and wrapping.