MINIMIZATION OF THERMOELASTIC DEFORMATION IN-SPACE STRUCTURES UNDERGOING PERIODIC MOTION

A numerical scheme is devised for the open-loop optimal control of the thermoelastic deformation of space structures. The motion that the space structure undergoes and the control loads are assumed to be periodic in time, with a given period. Four different cost functionals are considered, which involve the elastic deformation of the structure and include penalties on the control magnitudes. A finite element harmonic balance procedure is employed as the first step of the optimization scheme. The performance of the scheme is demonstrated via numerical examples.