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Piezoelectric Polymers Actuators for Precise Shape Control of Large Scale Space AntennasExtremely large, lightweight, in-space deployable active and passive microwave antennas are demanded by future space missions. This paper investigates the development of PVDF based piezopolymer actuators for controlling the surface accuracy of a membrane reflector. Uniaxially stretched PVDF films were poled using an electrodeless method which yielded high quality poled piezofilms required for this application. To further improve the piezoperformance of piezopolymers, several PVDF based copolymers were examined. It was found that one of them exhibits nearly three times improvement in the in-plane piezoresponse compared with PVDF and P(VDF-TrFE) piezopolymers. Preliminary experimental results indicate that these flexible actuators are very promising in controlling precisely the shape of the space reflectors.
Document ID
20070034770
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
External Source(s)
Authors
Chen, Qin
(Pennsylvania State Univ. University Park, PA, United States)
Natale, Don
(Pennsylvania State Univ. University Park, PA, United States)
Neese, Bret
(Pennsylvania State Univ. University Park, PA, United States)
Ren, Kailiang
(Pennsylvania State Univ. University Park, PA, United States)
Lin, Minren
(Pennsylvania State Univ. University Park, PA, United States)
Zhang, Q. M.
(Pennsylvania State Univ. University Park, PA, United States)
Pattom, Matthew
(Pennsylvania State Univ. University Park, PA, United States)
Wang, K. W.
(Pennsylvania State Univ. University Park, PA, United States)
Fang, Houfei
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Im, Eastwood
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
March 18, 2007
Subject Category
Communications And Radar
Meeting Information
Meeting: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials and Nondestruvtive Evaluation and Health Monitoring
Location: San Diego, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: March 18, 2007
End Date: March 22, 2007
Sponsors: International Society for Optical Engineering
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
actuators
deployable antenna
shape controls
piezoelectric
electroactive polymers (EAP)

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