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Spider-inspired anti-impact hydraulics-based structure for on-orbit capture

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Abstract

An ever-growing number of malfunctioning satellites and space debris now pose a severe threat to space activities, such that on-orbit capture of non-cooperative targets has become an urgent task. During on-orbit capture missions, considering the uncertainty of the targets’ motion, targets would inevitably exert a mechanical impulse on the satellite platform that could seriously compromise its stability. Thus, an anti-impact structure is required to be incorporated into the capture mechanism of the satellite platform to protect it. However, conventional bio-inspired quadrilateral shape (BIQS) anti-impact structure requires large installation space (up to six meters) owing to its weak nonlinear damping property and strong coupling of damping and stiffness properties arising from geometric nonlinearity, leading to severe stability and loading issues. To solve these issues, a spider-inspired anti-impact hydraulic-based (SIAH) structure is proposed for the first time in this paper. Concretely, the linear damper of the BIQS structure is replaced by a hydraulic damper, converting geometric nonlinearity into component nonlinearity. In view of the practical working conditions of on-orbit missions, i.e., the movement of the satellite platform and the mass of the capture target, the SIAH structure has the potential to achieve much better anti-impact performance and stability with an almost optimal size of the structure. All of these benefits result from nonlinear damping, nonlinear stiffness and weak coupling of damping and stiffness properties owing to the application of the hydraulic damper. Specifically, the nonlinear damping and nonlinear stiffness are able to improve the anti-impact performance of the structure without sacrificing the stability, and the weak coupling of damping and stiffness properties can solve the competing effects of different parameters in the designing process. Moreover, experiments utilizing the air-bearing table are carried out, eliminating complex friction incurred by use of the rail in previous experiments. The experiments generate consistent results and verify the correctness of the simulations.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by Chinese NSF (No. 11972026), the CAS Youth Innovation Promotion Association and the General Research Fund of HK RGC (15206717).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Astronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, People’s Republic of China

    Zihao Chen, Xiaokui Yue & Honghua Dai

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 999007, People’s Republic of China

    Xingjian Jing

Authors
  1. Zihao Chen
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  2. Xiaokui Yue
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  4. Honghua Dai
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Contributions

ZC performed investigation. XY performed supervision and writing—review and editing. XJ performed validation and data curation. HD contributed to conceptualization and methodology.

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Correspondence to Honghua Dai.

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Appendix A

Appendix A

Components

Parameters

Symbol

Initial valve

Unit

Initial  state

Mass  of  target

\({{\varvec{m}}}_{1}\)

20/2000

kg

 

Mass  of  satellite  platform

\({{\varvec{m}}}_{2}\)

2500

kg

Stiffness  structure

Stiffness  of  spring

\({\varvec{k}}\)

1200

N/m

 

Number  of  layers

\({\varvec{n}}\)

3

-

 

Initial  assembly  angle

\(\theta _{0}\)

\(\pi /6\)

rad

 

Length  of  rods

\({\varvec{I}}\)

\({0.\, 5}\)

m

 

Rotation  friction

c

0.2

kg \(\bullet \)   m/s

 

Pressure  of  minor  cavity  1

\({\varvec{P}}_ {c1}\)

-

MPa

 

Pressure  of  minor  cavity  2

\({\varvec{P}}_{c2}\)

–

MPa

 

Section  area  of  major  cavity

\(A_n\)

1325.  75

\(\hbox {mm}^{2}\)

 

Section  area  of  piston  ring

\(A_u\)

559.863

\(\hbox {{mm}}^{2}\)

 

Section  area  of  piston

\({\varvec{A}}_m\)

814.  332

\(\hbox {{mm}}^{2}\)

 

Section  area  of  piston  rod

\({\varvec{A}}_r\)

154.469

\(\hbox {{mm}}^{2}\)

 

Length  of  external  pipe

\({\varvec{L}}_\textrm{pipe}\)

750

mm

 

Diameter  of  minor  tube

\(d_{\hbox {m}}\)

32.2

mm

Hydraulic  damper

Diameter  of  piston  rod

\(d_ {r}\)

14

mm

 

Diameter  of  external  pipe

\({\varvec{d}}_\textrm{pipe}\)

50

mm

 

Diameter  of  check  valve  i

\({\varvec{d}}_ {{valve}\_{i}}\)

28

mm

 

Stiffness  of  check  valve  i

\({\varvec{K}}_{\textrm{valve}\_{i}}\)

750

N/mm

 

Stiffness  of  spring

\(k_s\)

1200

N/mm

 

Initial  tensile  of  spring

\({\varvec{y}}_s\)

  
 

Dynamic viscosity of aerospace lubricants

\(\mu \)

0.  521

\({N\, \bullet \, s/m}^{2}\)

 

Density  of  aerospace  lubricants

\(\rho \)

\({1.\, 892X10}^{3}\)

\({{\hbox {kg}}/{\hbox {m}}}^{2}\)

 

Discharge  coefficient

\(C_{df}\)

0.  7

–

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Chen, Z., Yue, X., Jing, X. et al. Spider-inspired anti-impact hydraulics-based structure for on-orbit capture. Nonlinear Dyn 111, 14925–14956 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11071-023-08621-5

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