A Force-Based Elastic Mesh Model for Electrical Property Analysis of Reflector Antennas

Metal mesh with periodic knitting patterns is commonly attached to support structures in deployable reflector antennas as the reflecting surface. Mesh patterns change under different tension conditions, leading to variations in electrical properties. This paper presents a force-based elastic mesh modeling method for investigating these electrical property variations. The mechanical characteristics of the mesh are analyzed and then integrated with its geometric parameters to formulate representative equations for the proposed model. Furthermore, the establishment process of the mesh model is described using a commercial mesh as an example. Tensile tests are conducted to determine the engineering constants for the constitutive relation of the mesh material, which is crucial for deriving the force–displacement equation. An elastic mesh model is constructed for simulations. The simulated reflectance and transmittance match well with the measured results, thus verifying the feasibility and precision of the proposed model in analyzing and predicting variations in the electrical properties of metal meshes under varying forces.