Chapter IV.1
A small satellite

In this Chapter, one describes the finite element model used in all the examples. The Chapter is organized as follows:

• In section IV.1.1, one presents the satellite’s structure and its finite element model.
• The materials and element properties are described in section IV.1.2.
• The conventions used for the numbering of nodes, elements and RBEs, and the groups that have been defined are given in section IV.1.3.
• In section IV.1.4, the loads and boundary conditions used in the examples of Chapter IV.2 are presented.
• Finally, one briefly describes in section IV.1.6 the way the FE model has been split into several bulk data files, and the organization of these files into several directories.