multiscale modeling; finite element method; deployable structures; composite structures

Due to the inherent viscoelasticity of constituent matrix and the possibility of long-term storage, space deployable structures made of composites are likely to exhibit relaxation in the stored strain energy, which may degrade their deployment performance. This paper presents a bottom-up finite element based multiscale computational strategy that bridges the experimentally measurable properties of constituent fibers and matrix to numerical predictions of viscoelastic behavior of composite laminates and general shell structures.