Modelling and design of origami inspired deployable structures for aerospace applications

The increasing power demand of modern spacecraft requires solar arrays that are both lightweight and highly compactable. Origami-inspired deployable structures offer an effective solution, achieving large deployed areas within limited launch volumes. However, their strongly nonlinear folding behaviour poses significant challenges for numerical modelling: full finite element analyses are accurate but computationally expensive, limiting their use in early-stage design. This PhD research, conducted in collaboration with Astradyne Srl, an Italian startup developing textile-based photovoltaic technologies, addresses this gap by advancing reduced-order modelling techniques for origami-inspired systems. Astradyne’s core technology merges high-performance textile with rigid-flexible electronics, enabling ultralightweight deployable solar arrays, which motivates the need for efficient and predictive simulation tools. Building upon existing reduced-order methods, this work develops a new dynamic bar and hinge framework that extends classical quasi-static formulations to time dependent behaviour. The framework is implemented in MATLAB, incorporating inertia and damping and supporting multiple integration schemes (Forward Euler, Newmark–β, and HHT–α). Validation against analytical cases and high-fidelity finite element models demonstrates accurate predictions of deployment transients, oscillations, and post-deployment dynamics. The proposed method preserves the computational efficiency of bar and hinge models while expanding their applicability to dynamic analyses. It thus provides both a methodological advancement in the mechanics of deployable structures and a practical design tool for next-generation origami-based solar arrays and lightweight space systems.