Abstract The deformation of the solar-sail membrane is an important factor for causing inaccuracies in the solar-sail missions. This paper describes the solar sail under deformation by using a new modelling technique based on point cloud and triangular mesh generation. Two types of deformation, stemming from wrinkling and billowing, are modelled. The changes in the solar radiation pressure force and the moment caused by deformation are calculated and compared to the ideal non-deformed case. The heliocentric spiral trajectory and the orbital angular momentum reversal trajectory are taken as examples to quantify the influence of the deformation from an orbit point of view. Additionally, point cloud simplification, based on the normal vector and bounding box, is utilized to simplify the original deformed-sail model. It involves a reasonable reduction and renewal of the points in the model considering the variation of surface curvature. The simplification and its modelling accuracy are numerically investigated as well as computational efficiency.

中文翻译：

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基于点云法的太阳帆变形分析

摘要 太阳帆薄膜的变形是导致太阳帆任务不准确的重要因素。本文使用基于点云和三角网格生成的新建模技术描述变形下的太阳帆。对由起皱和滚滚引起的两种变形进行建模。计算了太阳辐射压力的变化和变形引起的力矩，并与理想的非变形情况进行了比较。以日心螺旋轨迹和轨道角动量反转轨迹为例，从轨道角度量化变形的影响。此外，基于法向量和边界框的点云简化被用来简化原始变形帆模型。它涉及考虑表面曲率变化的模型中点的合理减少和更新。对简化及其建模精度以及计算效率进行了数值研究。