{"title":"Design and evaluation of additively manufactured polyetherimide orbital debris shielding for spacecraft","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2024.105150","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The increasingly congested orbital environment around Earth threatens the safety of space assets. Micrometeoroids and orbital debris (MMOD) less than 1 cm but traveling at hypervelocities pose a serious but defensible hazard. Traditional shields are installed during spacecraft assembly and must survive launch loads, constraining their size, shape, and ultimately, effectiveness. Recent advances in on-orbit additive manufacturing have created new opportunities for shield design and deployment. This work describes the modeling and testing of additively manufactured polyetherimide shields. The finite element code CTH was used to model hypervelocity impacts (HVIs) of such shields, and though imperfect, the models were useful for shield design. Several shield designs were additively manufactured and underwent HVI testing with a two-stage light gas gun in the regime of 4 mm diameter aluminum projectile impacts at 5 - 6.5 km/s. All successfully survived the HVIs, indicating their potential effectiveness as MMOD spacecraft shielding.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50318,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Impact Engineering","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Impact Engineering","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0734743X24002756","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, MECHANICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The increasingly congested orbital environment around Earth threatens the safety of space assets. Micrometeoroids and orbital debris (MMOD) less than 1 cm but traveling at hypervelocities pose a serious but defensible hazard. Traditional shields are installed during spacecraft assembly and must survive launch loads, constraining their size, shape, and ultimately, effectiveness. Recent advances in on-orbit additive manufacturing have created new opportunities for shield design and deployment. This work describes the modeling and testing of additively manufactured polyetherimide shields. The finite element code CTH was used to model hypervelocity impacts (HVIs) of such shields, and though imperfect, the models were useful for shield design. Several shield designs were additively manufactured and underwent HVI testing with a two-stage light gas gun in the regime of 4 mm diameter aluminum projectile impacts at 5 - 6.5 km/s. All successfully survived the HVIs, indicating their potential effectiveness as MMOD spacecraft shielding.
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Impact Engineering, established in 1983 publishes original research findings related to the response of structures, components and materials subjected to impact, blast and high-rate loading. Areas relevant to the journal encompass the following general topics and those associated with them:
-Behaviour and failure of structures and materials under impact and blast loading
-Systems for protection and absorption of impact and blast loading
-Terminal ballistics
-Dynamic behaviour and failure of materials including plasticity and fracture
-Stress waves
-Structural crashworthiness
-High-rate mechanical and forming processes
-Impact, blast and high-rate loading/measurement techniques and their applications