Thermoelastic flutter models for elements of flexible satellites

Models of thermally induced flutter of the flexible elements of a satellite, such as beams, circular plates, and cylindrical shells have been obtained. These models form the necessary blocks for analyzing the motion of satellites. The heat input is considered to be caused by solar radiations. The partial differential equations for all the elements of the satellite are linear in the space dependent variables and nonlinear in the time-dependent variables. These equations are coupled through the motion of the center of mass of the satellite. Galerkin's method has been used to remove the space-dependence of these equations. In the succeeding paper, a further reduction of these equations is made into singular perturbation equations, which are amenable to solution for complex problems of extremely large number of degrees of freedom.