Molecular beam-surface scattering experiments have been used to study the mechanisms of material removal when a hydrocarbon surface erodes in the highly-oxidizing environment of low Earth orbit or in a simulated space environment on Earth. During steady-state oxidation, CO and CO2 are produced. Formation of these volatile species is believed to account for most of the mass loss of a polymer under O-atom attack. A new phenomenon reported here is that the rate of CO2 production from the surface is dramatically enhanced when high-kinetic energy (>9eV) N2 molecules collide with a surface that is undergoing continuous oxidation. The CO2 yield from the surface appears to depend exponentially on collision energy. Such a collisional process may be very important in some exposure environments (e.g., in space, where N2 strikes oxidized surfaces with collision energies on the order of 9 eV, and in certain test facilities that subject oxidized surfaces to bombardment by O2 molecules with kinetic energies greater than 9 eV).
Mechanisms of polymer erosion in low earth orbit: implications for ground-based atomic oxygen testing
1999
13 Seiten, 21 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Low-Earth-Orbit Atomic Oxygen Erosion of Polymer Surfaces
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