Impact resistance mechanism of reactive material bumper for spacecraft Whipple shield: Experiments and numerical simulations

With the rapid development of human manned spaceflight, the threat of hypervelocity impact of space debris to spacecraft safety has attracted more and more attention, and new materials for spacecraft shield need to be developed to meet the challenges caused by explosive growth of space debris. In this paper, the experiments of projectiles with hypervelocity impact on the Whipple shields with reactive material as bumpers were carried out by using two-stage light-gas gun. Through numerical simulations and experiments, the interaction between projectile and reactive material bumper was studied, and the fragments distribution, velocity and temperature of debris cloud induced by projectile impacting on reactive material bumper were analyzed. The hypervelocity impact resistance mechanism of Whipple shield with reactive material as bumper was obtained. The results show that the impact and detonation reaction combined effect of reactive material bumper can cause the projectile to be subjected to shock wave load twice, which leads to more effective fragmentation of projectile, more effective dispersion and deceleration of debris cloud, and more effective temperature rise of material. Reactive material bumper can improve the protective capability of Whipple shield, and has a great potential application prospect.