Application of carbon/epoxy composites to support structures of space payloads

In order to meet the requirements of light weights, high specific strength and high specific moduli for a space payload, the advantages and disadvantages of the engineering materials used in the supports of the space payload were analyzed, and the feasibility of the application of the carbon/epoxy composites to the suppors structures was explored. The design methods of the carbon/epoxy composites were introduced by the actual application in space fields. Finally, a carbon/epoxy composite structure was designed and fabricated to support a 80 kg weight payload and to undergo both sine and random vibration tests. Experimental results indicate that the structure can resist the acceleration of the random vibration tests in a structural basic frequency of 103.6 Hz successfully, while the mass has reduced almost 30％ as compared with that of the structure made by Al alloy materials. It is shown that the carbon/epoxy composites can be used as the support structures of the space payloads.