Optimal design of carbon fiber collapsible hinge for space application.

In order to design the optimal size of carbon fiber collapsible hinge for space engineering application, the modal and folding analysis of carbon fiber collapsible hinge is carried out in this paper. Natural frequencies and mode shapes are investigated through finite element model. The result is also verified by modal experiments. The maximum stress during folding process of the hinge is obtained by quasi-static simulation analysis. In order to increase the stiffness and stability of this collapsible structure, the fundamental frequency and maximum stress are optimized with respect to the hinge size. A co-simulation optimal design method is proposed in this paper. The optimal hinge size is obtained through non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm based on radial basis function neural network surrogate model. The fundamental frequency is increased by 12%, while the maximum stress is decreased by 13% after optimal design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]