Vibration characteristics analysis of rigid-flexible spacecraft with double-direction hinged solar arrays

The vibration characteristics of a rigid-flexible coupling spacecraft with double-direction hinged solar arrays are studied. The Kirchhoff plate theory is adopted to derive the governing equations. The Chebyshev polynomials are introduced as admissible functions to construct the dynamic model of each solar panel. The Lagrange multiplier method is employed to describe the continuity conditions of the flexible hinges. The Rayleigh-Ritz method is used to obtain the natural frequencies and rigid-flexible coupling global mode shapes. The validity of the present method is verified by comparing with the ANSYS results. Then, detailed studies are carried out to illustrate the effects of the inertia moment of the central rigid body, hinges stiffness, and aspect ratio of solar panels on the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the spacecraft. The results demonstrate that there exist a series of frequency veering and mode shift phenomena due to the variation of inertia moment, hinges stiffness, and aspect ratio. The inertia moment of the central rigid body plays a significant role in the attitude motion of the central rigid body. Finally, the mode localization factor is introduced to compare the mode localization degrees of three types of spacecraft. Results reveal that the longer the length of chord-wise direction solar panels, the more severe mode localization degree.