An estimation of the influence of ionised radiation of solar flares on spacecraft material was made. The main part of the energy of solar flares lies in the range of soft X-ray radiation, i.e. 0.1 KeV - 10 KeV. The predominant energy contribution comes from photons with energy between 1 KeV and 3 KeV. An evaluation of the interaction of soft X-ray radiation with materials was made. There is a dependency between the total energy absorption of a material and its elementary composition. Evaluation of absorption coefficients for different material depending on photon energy is given. Polymer-building elements such as Fluorine and Silicon possess much higher absorbing coefficients than Carbon and Oxygen. Modelling of dose distributions in materials have shown that the absorption of soft X-ray radiation has an extremely non-homogenous nature. Namely, for energy of photons 1 KeV - 3 KeV the absorbed dose varies through three orders of magnitude over a depth of 20 micron in case of Teflon FEP while this depth is 5 mm - 8 mm for SiC, SiO2 and SiC materials. An extremely high energy absorption peak is observed in a skin layer with a thickness of 1.5 +/- 0.5 micron. The post flight measurements of mechanical and spectroscopic properties of Teflon FEP samples, and analysis of the exposure environment show that the low energy part of the X-ray radiation from the solar flares plays a major role in the degradation of Teflon in space.
Degradation of materials under the action of soft X-ray radiation from solar flares
Materialabbau unter der Wirkung weicher Röntgenstrahlung aus Sonneneruptionen
1997
10 Seiten, 11 Bilder, 9 Tabellen, 16 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Degradation of materials under the action of soft X-ray radiation from solar flares
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