Applications of 3D-printing in Spacecraft Structures

Abstract

In the past decade, there was a continuous rise in the importance of developing new spacecraft designs. To meet the space requirements, all spacecraft designs must be light, stiff, and capable of handling harsh space environmental conditions. A CubeSat is a small cubic-satellite that is usually launched a secondary payload. It was initially intended as an educational tool to introduce the satellite design process to college students and the concept of the CubeSat has been developing ever since. During the progress of making a CubeSat, it is a requirement to minimize the mass while maximizing the mechanical performance. This objective leads the manufacturer to consider employing Additive Manufacturing (AM) in constructing the CubeSat. AM made it possible to make a superior lightweight CubeSats due to its capability to introduce complex geometry. Recent studies have taken advantage of the AM features that can be implemented into CubeSat structures topology optimization, and latticing. They are lightweight strategies that can be utilized in the inner structure of the mechanical support system of the CubeSat to enhance its mechanical performance. There are many designs to consider; however, the interest of this research is the cubic crystals structures, in a truss-based form; Simple Cubic (SC), Body-Centered-Cubic (BCC), Faced-Centered-Cubic (FCC). These structures were investigated experimentally by performing compression tests on the samples and simulated using the finite element software Abaqus using explicit solver under Quasi-Static compression conditions. The evaluation includes Lattice Structure (LS) with three different cell sizes; 14, 18 and 20mm in a 2x2x2 cubic structure. In order to expand the investigation, this research includes two studies. Study I, the three structures with the three dimensions were printed via the MultiJet technique considering the VisiJet® M3 black material. Keeping the constraints fixed in terms of the experiment and the simulation, in Study II, the same number of samples were printed using Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) considering Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) material. Results from both studies include Load displacement curves, Stress-strain curves and Specific Energy Absorption (SEA). The final results showed a good agreement among the Experiments and the simulation. It also concluded that the SC is the most favorable structure and the smaller the dimension, the greater the mechanical properties would be.

Date of Award	May 2022
Original language	American English