• Composites Research
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.83-87
• /
• 2018

An object in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is affected by many environmental conditions unlike earth's surface such as, Atomic oxygen (AO), Ultraviolet Radiation (UV), thermal cycling, High Vacuum and Micrometeoroids and Orbital Debris (MMOD) impacts. The effect of all these parameters have to be carefully considered when designing a space structure, as it could be very critical for a space mission. Polybenzimidazole (PBI) is a high performance thermoplastic polymer that could be a suitable material for space missions because of its excellent resistance to these environmental factors. A thin coating of PBI polymer on the carbon epoxy composite laminate (referred as CFRP) was found to improve the energy absorption capability of the laminate in event of a hypervelocity impact. However, the overall efficiency of the shield also depends on other factors like placement and orientation of the laminates, standoff distances and the number of shielding layers. This paper studies the effectiveness of using a PBI coating on the front bumper in a multi-shock shield design for enhanced hypervelocity impact resistance. A thin PBI coating of 43 micron was observed to improve the shielding efficiency of the CFRP laminate by 22.06% when exposed to LEO environment conditions in a simulation chamber. To study the effectiveness of PBI coating in a hypervelocity impact situation, experiments were conducted on the CFRP and the PBI coated CFRP laminates with projectile velocities between 2.2 to 3.2 km/s. It was observed that the mass loss of the CFRP laminates decreased 7% when coated by a thin layer of PBI. However, the study of mass loss and damage area on a witness plate showed CFRP case to have better shielding efficiency than PBI coated CFRP laminate case. Therefore, it is recommended that PBI coating on the front bumper is not so effective in improving the overall hypervelocity impact resistance of the space structure.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.43-57
• /
• 2023

The hypervelocity impact simulations of space objects and structures are performed using LS-DYNA. Space objects with spherical, conical, and hollow cylindrical shapes are modeled using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). The direct and indirect impact zones of a space structure are modeled using the SPH and finite element methods, respectively. The Johnson-Cook material model and Mie-Grüneisen Equation of State are used to represent the nonlinear behavior of metallic materials in hypervelocity impact. In the hypervelocity impact simulations, various impact conditions are considered, such as the shape of the space object, the thickness of the space structure, the impact angle, and the impact velocity. The shapes of debris clouds are quantitatively classified based on the geometric parameters. Conical space objects provide the worst debris clouds for all impact conditions.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.27 no.10
• /
• pp.1738-1747
• /
• 2003

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), a pure Lagrangian numerical method, is applied to analysis of penetration phenomenon of bumper plate which is installed outside of spacecraft hull to protect the spacecraft against hypervelocity meteorite impact. Effects of SPH parameters, such as artificial viscosities, smoothing lengths, numbers of particles and time increments, are analysed by comparing the SPH simulation results with experimental ones with regard to subsequent formation of debris cloud. An optimum range of parameter values is determined by error analysis and various SPH numerical results are compared with experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.50 no.12
• /
• pp.829-838
• /
• 2022

This study conducts Hypervelocity Impact(HVI) simulations considering space objects with various shapes and different impact angles. A commercial nonlinear structural dynamics analysis code, LS-DYNA, is used for the present simulation study. The Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic(SPH) method is applied to represent the impact phenomena with hypervelocity. Mie-Grüneisen Equation of State and Johnson-Cook material model are used to consider nonlinear structural behaviors of metallic materials. The space objects with various shapes are modeled as a sphere, cube, cylinder, and cone, respectively. The space structure is modeled as a thin plate(200 mm×200 mm×2 mm). HVI simulations are conducted when space objects with various shapes with 4.119 km/s collide with the space structures, and the impact phenomena such as a debris cloud are analyzed considering the space objects with various shapes having the same mass at the different impact angles of 0°, 30° and 45° between the space object and space structure. Although space objects have the same kinetic energy, different debris clouds are generated due to different shapes. In addition, it is investigated that the size of the debris cloud is decreased by impact angles.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.37 no.7
• /
• pp.929-935
• /
• 2013

This paper presents the results of sizing optimization of ahat-shaped stiffener on a rectangular stiffened panel. The stiffened panel is subjected to impact loading by a projectile with a velocity of 1500-2500 m/s. To determine the size of the hat-shaped stiffener, sizing optimization was performed. The sizing optimization consists of three functions: objective, constraint, and design functions. The objective function is used to maximize the fundamental frequency of the stiffened panel. The constraint function is that the stiffener volume is less than 10% of the plate volume. The design function is the dimensions of the hat-shaped stiffener. By using the stiffened panel with the optimized hat-shaped stiffener, a hypervelocity impact was simulated, and the velocity and kinetic energy on the optimized stiffener was obtained. To evaluate the impact reduction on the stiffened panel, the velocity and kinetic energy of the projectile was normalized and compared.

• Composites Research
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.14-18
• /
• 2010

Among the factors that threaten spacecraft, Micrometeoroid and Orbital Space Debris(MMOD) cause damage to spacecraft and impact velocity is about 8~70km/s. Nowadays, various Whipple Shield are studied and applied to protect spacecraft. As the materials used to Shielding System, aluminum is usually used but composite is also used increasingly. So this study compared characteristics of hypervelocity impact of Aluminum and composites through finite element analysis. The Projectile was a spherical shape using Aluminum 2017-T4, and aluminum plate was using Aluminum 6061-T6, CFRP plate was using T300/5208. Initial impact velocity of projectile was 1km/s. As a result, kinematic energy of projectile decreased to about 64J and about 63J for aluminum plate and CFRP plate, respectively after impact. Although both results is almost same about the absorption of impact energy, you can think the CFRP has good ballistic characteristic, because CFRP is lighter about 1.7 times compared with density of aluminum.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.40 no.7
• /
• pp.555-563
• /
• 2012

In earth orbit, a great number of orbital debris move around in extremely high velocity, and they become serious threats to satellites. In this study, smoothed particle hydrodynamics(SPH) is used to analyze the damage of a low earth orbit satellite due to the hypervelocity impact with orbital debris. The damage of honeycomb sandwich panel(HC/SP) used for walls of a satellite is analyzed with respect to impact velocities. For the additional analysis to examine the safety of interior components of the satellite, an attached electronic box and an offset electronic box are considered. As a result of the analysis considering the orbital debris having a probability of collision more than 2% at altitude of 685km, it is shown that the HC/SP can be perforated but only small craters are formed on both the attached electronic box and the offset electronic box.

• Composites Research
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.31-38
• /
• 2011

In this paper, a novel hybrid composite shield to protect space structures from hypervelocity impact of micrometeoroid and space debris is proposed. The finite element model of the proposed shield was constructed and finite element analysis was conducted to approximate the energy absorption rate. Before the final model analysis, analysis of each component including the aluminum plate, PMMA plate, and intermediate layer of fabric was performed, verifying the finite element model of each component. The material properties used in the analyses were predicted material property values for high strain rates. The analysis results showed that, other than the fabric, the energy absorption rate of each component was in agreement. Afterwards, the finite element model of the hybrid composite shield was constructed, where it was analyzed for the restrained and unrestrained fabric boundary condition cases. Through the finite element analysis, the fiber pullout mechanism was realized for the hybrid shield with free boundary inserted fabric, and it was observed that this mechanism led to energy absorption increase.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.461-469
• /
• 2013

Computer simulation with FEM is very useful to analyze hypervelocity impact phenomena that are tremendously expensive or otherwise too impractical to analyze experimentally. Shock physics can be efficiently handled by mesh adaptation which allows finite element mesh to be locally optimized to resolve moving shock wave in explosion. In this paper, an adaptive meshing technique based upon quadtree data structure was applied to resolve ballistic impact phenomena. The technique can adaptively refine a mesh in the neighborhood of a shock and coarsen the mesh for the smooth flow behind the shock according to a criterion. The criterion for refinement and coarsening is based upon the standard deviation of the gradient of shock pressure on the associated field. Shock simulation starts with the rough mesh of the pressure field and mesh density is increased locally under the criterion at each time step. The results show that the mesh adaptation enables to minimize the global computation error of FEM and to increase storage and computational saving compared to the fixed resolution of the conventional static mesh approach.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.24 no.6
• /
• pp.715-722
• /
• 2011

In this paper, the behavior of nuclear-power plant subjected to an aircraft impact is performed using the parallel analysis. In the erstwhile study of an aircraft impact to the nuclear-power plant, it has been used that the impact load is applied at the local area by using the impact load-time history function of Riera, and the target structures have been restricted to the simple RC(Reinforced Concrete) walls or RC buildings. However, in this paper, the analysis of an aircraft impact is performed by using a real aircraft model similar to the Boeing 767 and a fictitious nuclear-power plant similar to the real structure, and an aircraft model is verified by comparing the generated history of the aircraft crash against the rigid target with another history by using the Riera's function which is allowable in the impact evaluation guide, NEI07-13(2009). Also, in general, it is required too much time for the hypervelocity impact analysis due to the contact problems between two or more adjacent physical bodies and the high nonlinearity causing dynamic large deformation, so there is a limitation with a single CPU alone to deal with these problems effectively. Therefore, in this paper, Message-Passing MIMD type of parallel analysis is performed by using self-constructed Linux-Cluster system to improve the computational efficiency, and in order to evaluate the parallel performance, the four cases of analysis, i.e. plain concrete, reinforced concrete, reinforced concrete with bonded containment liner plate, steel-plate concrete structure, are performed and discussed.