Shape Accuracy of a Joint-Dominated Deployable Mast

This paper presents a study to capture and model friction related changes in the un-loaded configuration of deployable masts with articulated joints. A finite model of a rep-resentative mast structure is described. This model includes a detailed treatment of the latching mechanism. The parameters of the computational model are based on direct mea-surements on components of a physical model. The moment-rotation relationship for a complete single bay of the physical model has been measured and the overall behavior is predicted well by the model, however the model predicts the residual rotation at zero moment to be zero and so it is concluded that a more refined model for the latch will need to be developed.