Deployable structures made from ultrathin composite materials can be folded elastically and are able to selfdeployudby releasing the stored strain energy. This paper presents a detailed study of the folding and deployment of audtape-spring hinge made from a two-ply plain-weave laminate of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic. Aparticular versionudof this hinge was constructed, and its moment-rotation profile during quasi-static deployment was measured. Theudpresent study is the first to incorporate in the simulation an experimentally validated elastic micromechanical modeludand to provide quantitative comparisons between the simulations and the measured behavior of an actual hinge.udFolding and deployment simulations of the tape-spring hinge were carried out with the commercial finite elementudpackage Abaqus/Explicit, starting from the as-built unstrained structure. The folding simulation includes the effectsudof pinching the hinge in the middle to reduce the peak moment required to fold it. The deployment simulation fullyudcaptures both the steady-state moment part of the deployment and the final snap back to the deployed configuration.udAn alternative simulation without pinching the hinge provides an estimate of the maximum moment that could beudcarried by the hinge during operation. This is about double the snapback moment.
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