Design and Construction of a Self-Deployable Structure for the Moon House Project

Abstract: This master thesis describes the design and construction of a prototype for the Moon House project. The goal was to develop a structural concept which ultimately will allow a 2 × 2.5 × 3 m3 house to be deployed on the surface of the Moon as an art installation. A 1 to 5 scale model was built and tested. Provided is background information on lightweight and inflatable technology for space applications. This is then reviewed together with earlier work related to the Moon House project in order to come up with a feasible design. The structure consists of a frame made out of plain-weave glass fiber tape springs. These are joined with plastic connectors and the frame is covered in a thin rip-stop polyester film. Elastic folds and pin-jointed hinges allow the structure to be folded, thus reducing its stowed volume. Deployment of the house is achieved with a combination of pressurization and elastically stored strain energy in the tape springs from folding of the structure. The tape springs have been tailored using specific lay-up and geometry to achieve an efficient folding scheme. The final structure was designed in Solid Edge and connectors were 3D-printed in plastic material. Deployment tests have been performed with partial success. Points of improvement have been identified and recommendations are made for future work.