Experimental Research on Performance of Hybrid Whipple Shield with Al-mesh and Basalt Fiber Woven
- Paper number
IAC-11,A6,3,25,x9792
- Author
Dr. Bin Jia, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
- Year
2011
- Abstract
Basalt fiber woven is a new type of material for shield of spacecrafts when subjected to hypervelocity impact of space debris because of its high specific strength, high specific modulus and other favorable characteristics. Three different Hybrid Whipple Shield based on basalt fiber woven and Al-mesh were presented under the concept of light-weight shield structure and their shield performances were compared through hypervelocity impact experiments using two-stage light gas gun. The basalt fiber woven used had an areal density of 0.022g/cm2. The mesh count of the Al-mesh was 20*20 and 28*28 respectively to yield different areal densities of 0.0325g/cm2 and 0.0362g/cm2. The total shield space was 100mm for all three shields and the rear wall was an Al 5A06 plate of 3mm in thickness for each. In Shield A, the front bumper was 3 layers of basalt fiber woven next to 6 layers of AL-mesh without any spacing between each adjacent layer to form a hybrid bumper. And an Al 2A12 plate of 1mm in thickness was placed in the middle of the front bumper and the rear wall. The front hybrid bumper and the middle bumper of Al-plate in Shield A were exchanged in space to form Shield B. If the front hybrid bumper in Shield A was split into two parts, i.e. the Al-mesh part and the basalt fiber woven part, with the spacing between each of the four bumper plates changed to be one third of the total shield space, then Shield C came into being. The total bumper areal density of each shield, rear wall excluded, was about 0.54g/cm2. The projectile launched was 2017 aluminum sphere with its diameter fixed to be 3.97mm and the impact velocity was between 2.0-6.0km/s with a 0 degree incident angle. The damage of the bumpers included and the rear wall were examined thoroughly after impact and compared to each other to evaluate the shield performance of different configurations and the influence of different Al-meshes as well. The experimental results indicated that within the speed range tested, Shield C has significantly better performance than that of Shield A and B, and Shield B is slightly better than Shield A. As for a same shield configuration, the Al-mesh of 20*20 can produce slightly better performance than that of 28*28.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-11,A6,3,25,x9792.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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