PREDICTION OF WRINKLE DEFORMATIONS IN THE SPACE MEMBRANE STRUCTURES

construction technology and is the main demanding object inthe future space activities. The inflatable structure is mainly made up ofmembrane; therefore, the maintenance of the structural surface accuracy isone of the most important problems. Wrinkling is the unique characteristicof the flexible membranes, and the wrinkles degrade thesurface accuracy and the structural performance, so, the study on wrinklesin membrane structures is desirable and essential. In this paper, aprediction model of wrinkles is proposed, based on the buckling theory, and thewrinkles, including the wrinkle amplitude, wrinkle wavelength and thecritical compressive stress, in a rectangular membrane subjected to in-planehorizontal shearing loads are predicted using the method proposed in the present paper.The predicted results show good agreement with our recentexperiments and the reported data.