Introduction

This chapter explains the major reason(s) the CHEM technology was created and developed at first for space deployable structures. Presently used space deployable structures are heavy, complex, expensive, have some notable in-flight failures and are not stowed-volume efficient. Therefore, one of the major efforts at NASA and the DoD has been to develop expandable structures with relatively low mass and small launch volume to be used in low-cost missions. The CHEM technology is one of results in the quest for simple, reliable and low-cost deployable/expandable structures. The SMP technologists took advantages of the SMP’s unique properties and created a SMP-based Cold-Hibernated Elastic Memory (CHEM) self-deployable structure technology. The key to this technology is the use of SMP-material systems, and lightweight CHEM structures are deployed via the shape memory effect (SME) and the foam’s elastic recovery.