| ASA is currently planning several missions involving the use of tethers in space; therefore, there exists a need for a simulation tool that can be used to predict the motion of long tethers with a high degree of fidelity. In the past, researchers have used analysis based on a "lumped mass" model; that is, the mass of the tether was represented by spring-connected particles. A shortcoming of a model of this type is that it cannot simulate bending and torsional stiffnesses. To overcome this limitation, this thesis develops a new model which uses rigid bodies rather than particles to represent the mass of the tether, which enables one to simulate bending and torsional stiffnesses, and to more closely approximate the inertia of the actual tether.;In order to approximate the motion of a continuous tether as closely as possible, one must work with a large number of rigid bodies (or particles), which leads to large values of n, the number of degrees of freedom. Simulations performed by most dynamical codes require a number of mathematical operations proportional to... |
