The space industry is at the higher end of an important value-added stream of commercial and public services. The development of Space technology in the last half century not only contributed decisively to the democratization of Information Technologies, but it also provided key information about our planet, climate prediction, weather forecast, crop growth monitoring, and defence. Fostering a globally competitive and innovative European space sector is one of the priorities under H2020 framework program.
However, the access to Space prices remain extremely high, which prevents new business models from development. Even though every kilogram sent to space costs over 4 k€ for low earth orbits and 18 k€ for geostationary, there are slightly over 2,000 operative satellites orbiting Earth and over 200 tonnes are yearly sent to Space.
Despite there is a clear tendency to reduce size and weight, more than 95% of the mass sent to orbit is in form of small to large satellites (>500 kg). In 2018, over 100 of these satellites were globally manufactured and sent to Space in roughly 100 launches. On average, around 20% of the dry weight of satellites and launchers corresponds to the structures.
Most of the load-bearing structures in modern satellites and launchers are cylindrical or conical shaped. They are generally designed from sandwich composites, carbon fibre laminates, or aluminium monocoques. Although these technologies are well developed and light, the disruptive anisogrid technology offers additional weight efficiency and fabrication benefits. In such lattice structures, the optimal disposition of the crossing bars provides the required stiffness to prevent buckling failure and take advantage of the full material strength.
However, achieving the lightest configuration (optimal bars thicknesses and shell geometry) fulfilling design specifications (loads and constraints) is challenging and time consuming. To solve this problem, we have developed a specific Software-as-a-Service solution for the rapid and automated sizing of anisogrid structures so-called ANISOPTER. Our web server at
http://anisopter.com(si apre in una nuova finestra) is able to explore millions of configurations in minutes and obtain equal or lighter structures than the competence.
The funding received by the European Commission allowed us to identify gaps in the first approach, add new optimization functionalities, validate results in different scenarios, and define our target clients. In addition, we have defined a preliminary working plan with the tasks to be undertaken before reaching the market and the estimated funding required.
Despite our first clients belong to Space sector our ultimate objectives point to Earth. We foresee that the success of ANISOPTER in the challenging Space sector will radically facilitate the expansion of anisogrid technology. In the long run, the application of optimized anisogrid concepts to terrestrial structures like wind power or electricity transport towers will contribute decisively to save Billions of Euros and significantly reduce the cost of energy.
Please, check an ANISOPTER demo video on YouTube (
https://youtu.be/j_OVnW4Dhak(si apre in una nuova finestra)) or request a FREE TRIAL license at
info@anisopter.com
