A Curved Bistable Composite Slit Tube for Deployable Membrane Structures

This paper uses experimental, numerical and analytical methods to investigate the bistable behavior of a curved bistable composite slit tube (Bi-CST). Using the vacuum bag method, two specimens were prepared and bistable experiments were performed. Two Finite Element Models (FEMs) were presented to model the bistable deformation process. Based on the minimum energy principle and three failure criteria, an analytical model to determine the bistable behavior of the curved Bi-CST was proposed, including the strain energy, geometric configuration and stress level. Analytical and numerical results agreed well with experimental results.