Abstract With the continuing development of space activities, the total number of space debris is increasing at an alarming rate, which greatly threatens the orbiting spacecraft. Confirming the location of space debris impact on a spacecraft is important to efficiently repair the damage and increase the life of the spacecraft on orbit. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is a permanently polarized piezoelectric polymer material with a high molecular weight. A charge signal will be generated when a pressure load is applied to the surface of the PVDF film. In addition, a high-velocity projectile impacting the PVDF film will produce very rapid irreversible local depolarization in the foil volume destroyed by the projectile. It will also generate a large charge signal. The PVDF film can be applied in space for detection of impacts due its excellent characteristics like high piezoelectric efficiency, stable temperature characteristics, good radiation resistance capacity, wide frequency range, to name a few. Presently, research is being conducted on position-sensing PVDF sensors aimed at detection of cosmic dust impacts. In this paper, based on the related research in the world, a method for locating the space debris impact is proposed. In this method, a number of narrow aluminum foil strip electrodes are plated orthogonally on the positive and negative surfaces of the PVDF film. A gap exists between two strips on the same side of the PVDF film. Each strip electrode on the PVDF film is a channel and the electrical charge is extracted by a conductive wire. The response amplitudes of the generated signals and the impact occurrence times detected from the channels located at the impact site are different from the signals from other channels in the developed matrix. The electric charge signal is translated to voltage signal via a demodulation circuit and the output signal of each channel is collected by the data acquisition system. The data from the impacted channels is acquired and the intersection of the affected channels identifies the location of the impact. The method provides a theoretical basis on PVDF position sensing and on-orbit space debris detection.
A Method for Locating Space Debris Impact Source Based on PVDF Films
2017-01-01
7 pages
Article/Chapter (Book)
Electronic Resource
English
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