Abstract This paper presents work performed for a study investigating the ability of different flexible materials to induce fragmentation of a hypervelocity projectile. Samples were chosen to represent a wide range of industrially available types of flexible materials like ceramic, aramid and carbon fabrics as well as a thin metallic mesh. Impact conditions and areal density were kept constant for all targets. Betacloth and multi-layer insulation (B-MLI) are mounted onto the targets to account for thermal system engineering requirements. All tests were performed using the Space light-gas gun facility (SLGG) of the Fraunhofer Institute for High-Speed Dynamics, Ernst-Mach-Institut, EMI. Projectiles were aluminum spheres with 5mm diameter impacting at approximately 6.3km/s. Fragmentation was evaluated using a witness plate behind the target. An aramid and a ceramic fabric lead the ranking of fabrics with the best projectile fragmentation and debris cloud dispersion performance. A comparison with an equal-density rigid aluminum plate is presented. The work presented can be applied to optimize the micrometeoroid and space debris (MM/SD) shielding structure of inflatable modules.

    Highlights ► Efficient fragmentation of hypervelocity projectiles is crucial to every micrometeoroid and space debris protection shield. ► A variety of fabrics are investigated for their hypervelocity projectile fragmentation performance. ► It is shown that many fabrics are good candidates for a bumper in flexible micrometeoroid and space debris protection shields. ► It is shown that multi-layer insulation on an aluminum bumper degrades severely the fragmentation performance of that bumper.


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    Title :

    Fragmentation of hypervelocity aluminum projectiles on fabrics


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Acta Astronautica ; 76 ; 42-50


    Publication date :

    2012-02-03


    Size :

    9 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English





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