Comparative Study on the Tensile and Compression Process of the Collapsible Ultra-Thin-Walled Composite Lens Rod

In this paper, experimental data during the compression and stretching of ultra-thin-walled deployable composite lens rods are compared with the finite element analysis data to study the flattening and stretching. The advantages and disadvantages of the two compression methods in the process of compressing the lens rod are examined. The compression process of the lens rod can be considered a small strain process with nonlinear deformation. First, the composite lens rod model created by ABAQUS was established for a finite element simulation analysis of the compression and tension. Second, compression and tensile experiments were performed on the pod samples. Then, by comparing the measurement results and the corresponding finite element simulation results, we verified the accuracy of the finite element simulation method and experiment. In the compression flattening mode and the tensile flat mode, the maximum error between the simulated and experimental values is 8.3% and 8.7%. Finally, by comparing the maximum tension, displacement, and strain results of the two compression methods, the compression squash is smaller and more uniformly distributed than the tensile squash stress, and the squash method should be preferred in the design of the mechanism.