A reactive material double-bumper shield for centimeter sized projectile

Abstract

The hypervelocity impact of space debris will cause fatal damage to spacecraft. At present, most of the protective shield structures can only resist the impact of millimeter sized projectiles, and it is very difficult for the protective structure with the finite area density and overall spacing to be impacted by the projectile with the diameter ≥1cm without failure. In this paper, a PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene)/Al (aluminum) reactive material double-bumper shield for centimeter sized space debris was presented, and the experiments of projectiles with hypervelocity impact on PTFE/Al reactive material double-bumper shields were carried out by using two-stage light-gas gun. The hypervelocity impact characteristics of Aluminum alloy double-bumper shield and PTFE/Al reactive material double-bumper shield were compared by numerical simulation. The ballistic limit curve of the PTFE/Al reactive material double-bumper shield was obtained by experiments and numerical simulations. The PTFE/Al reactive material double-bumper shield can resist the impact of the projectiles with the diameter ≥1cm at the low velocity range, intermediate velocity range, and the high velocity range. The PTFE/Al reactive material double-bumper shield can stop projectiles with 2∼4 times greater mass than the Aluminum alloy double-bumper shield at these impact conditions, and the PTFE/Al reactive material double-bumper shield can provide better protection than the Aluminum alloy double-bumper shield of equivalent weight. Compared with the Nextel/Kevlar Stuffed-Whipple shield, the impact resistance of PTFE/Al reactive materials is not lower than that of Nextel/Kevlar fiber materials.