Design & analysis for the configuration of a radially foldable wheel

Referring to the contradiction between the performance requirement of the vehicles and the limited payload space in the process of the aerospace launching,a radially foldable wheel mechanism is presented.On the basis of the analysis for the composition principle of the wheel,the topology synthetical analysis which consists of the configuration decomposition and the synthesis for the wheel mechanism is carried out.The topology transformation is studied while the rim-chain-links of the wheel is considered a unit configuration,then the three schemes for the linkage between the links and rim-chain-links are discussed in category.The configuration of the wheel is proved through analyzing,which provides the theory condition for the mechanism application in the aerospace.