CHAPTER 5
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

 The description of construction, stages of deployment, working principle and the

mechanism design of the proposed deployable closed loop structure for collapsible tents

and masts is explored in this thesis. The position, velocity and acceleration analysis of

the structures are also done. The stiffness of the deployable mast designed in this thesis

is compared with two other existing contemporary designs of masts.

 Both the tent and mast designed in this thesis are structures which are deployable

and stowable a number of times with ease. The most significant advantage of the two

proposed structures is that, in the stowed configuration though the springs have

maximum potential energy, the structures are in an equilibrium position. This is because

the direction of the force applied by the springs when the structures are stowed is

perpendicular to the direction of deployment.

 The proposed design for deployable tents and masts deploy in a very short time

interval, time taken to deploy any layer in the tent or any level in the mast is very small

and this is further supported by the numerical examples shown in Chapter 2 and 3. These

structures are purely spring driven mechanisms and the time taken by a spring to reach its

equilibrium position from a deflected position is very short which accounts for the fast

deploying nature of these structures. The tent and mast designed in this paper, when

stowed are compactly packed, with minimum space utilization. These structures consist

only of three parts which are plates, hinges and compressible struts. Hence they are easy

to construct, service and transport.