Design and analysis of flexible hinge used for unfolding spacecraft solar panels

Abstract

Two stiffness models for a flexible hinge with large rotation angle are established based on the pseudo-rigid body method and the series or parallel relationship of flexible units. Finite element simulation of the flexible hinge is conducted in ANSYS to verify the two stiffness models of the flexible hinge. A multi-objective optimization method is used to optimize the design parameters of the hinge. The stiffness models of the flexible hinge are used to establish the optimized objective function of an optimization model to improve the rotation angle of the hinge under a certain radial stiffness. After optimization, the rotation angle can reach 70 deg when the rotational and radial stiffnesses are 1.29 N·mm/rad and 1.37 N/mm.