Coupling dynamic analysis of spacecraft with multiple cylindrical tanks and flexible appendages

This paper is mainly concerned with the coupling dynamic analysis of a complex spacecraft consisting of one main rigid platform, multiple liquid-filled cylindrical tanks, and a number of flexible appendages. Firstly, the carrier potential function equations of liquid in the tanks are deduced according to the wall boundary conditions. Through employ- ing the Fourier-Bessel series expansion method, the dynamic boundaries conditions on a curved free-surface under a low-gravity environment are transformed to general simple differential equations and the rigid-liquid coupled sloshing dynamic state equations of liquid in tanks are obtained. The state vectors of rigid-liquid coupled equations are composed with the modal coordinates of the relative potential func- tion and the modal coordinates of wave height. Based on the B ernoulli-Euler beam theory and the D＇Alembert＇s prin- ciple, the rigid-flexible coupled dynamic state equations of flexible appendages are directly derived, and the coordi- nate transform matrixes of maneuvering flexible appendages are precisely computed as time-varying. Then, the cou- pling dynamics state equations of the overall system of the spacecraft are modularly built by means of the Lagrange＇s equations in terms of quasi-coordinates. Lastly, the cou-piing dynamic performances of a typical complex spacecraft are studied. The availability and reliability of the presented method are also confirmed.

Stability analysis of liquid filled spacecraft system with flexible attachment by using the energy–Casimir method

The stability of partly liquid filled spacecraft with flexible attachment was investigated in this paper. Liquid sloshing dynamics was simplified as the spring-mass model, and flexible attachment was modeled as the linear shearing beam. The dynamic equations and Hamiltonian of the coupled spacecraft system were given by analyzing the rigid body, liquid fuel, and flexible appendage. Nonlinear stability conditions of the coupled spacecraft system were derived by computing the variation of Casimir function which was added to the Hamiltonian. The stable region of the parameter space was given and validated by numerical computation. Related results suggest that the change of inertia matrix, the length of flexible attachment, spacecraft spinning rate, and filled ratio of liquid fuel tank have strong influence on the stability of the spacecraft system.

Heteroclinic bifurcations in attitude maneuver of coupled slosh-spacecraft with flexible appendage

In this paper, the chaotic dynamics in an attitude transition maneuver of a slosh-spacecraft coupled with flexible appendage in going from minor axis to major axis spin under the influence of dissipative effects due to fuel slosh and a small flexible appendage constrained to only torsional vibration is investigated. The slosh-spacecraft coupled with flexible appendage in attitude maneuver carrying a sloshing liquid is considered as multi-body system with the sloshing motion modeled as a spherical pendulum. The focus in this paper is that the dynamics of the liquid and flexible appendage vibration are coupled. The equations of motion are derived and transformed into a form suitable for the application of Melnikov’s method. Melnikov’s integral is used to predict the transversal intersections of the stable and unstable manifolds for the perturbed system. An analytical criterion for chaotic motion is derived in terms of system parameters. This criterion is evaluated for its significance to the design of spacecraft. The dependence of the onset of chaos on quantities such as body shape and magnitude of damping values, fuel fraction and torsional vibration frequency of flexible appendage are investigated. In addition, we show that a spacecraft carrying a sloshing liquid, after passive reorientation maneuver, will end up with periodic limit motion other than a final major axis spin because of the intrinsic non-linearity of fuel slosh. Furthermore, an extensive numerical simulation is carried out to validate the Melnikov’s analytical result.