Thermoelastic Deformations of Thin-Shell Deployable Booms

Large lightweight booms experience thermally induced deformations on-orbit. Deflection and temperature profiles of a popular deployable geometry with desirable bending stiffness (thin-shell cylindrical section) are observed experimentally under radiant heating in a vacuum chamber, as well as predicted via multiphysics simulation. Deflection and temperature plots exhibit behavior surprising for the simple geometry, and even suggest future improvements in both modeling areas.