Deployment Simulation of Miura-Origami Membrane Structures

In recent years, with the development of the space industry, thin film reflector structures have the feature of lightweight, high compact ratio, easy to fold and unfold and so on. Its form has received wide attention from researchers and a broad application prospect. In this paper, the nonlinear finite element software ABAQUS was used to carry out the numerical simulation of the deployment of membrane structures based on Miura-ori, by taking advantage of the variable Poisson’s ratio model to revise the stress distribution of membrane elements. Then the uniaxial tension tests were carried out to study the material properties of the polyimide film. The effective elastic modulus was used to simulate the crease of the membrane. The deployment of a membrane structure based on Miura origami pattern was studied. Moreover, effects of some parameters, such as the number of loading nodes and the loading rate on the numerical results were discussed.