Experimental Study on Damage Characteristics of CFRPs/Aluminum Honeycomb Sandwich Structure Impacted by Ultra-High Speed Under High and Low Temperatures

Abstract

With the rapid development of material science, the original aluminum alloy shield structure of spacecraft has been gradually replaced by sandwiched structure of carbon fiber reinforced resin matrix composite structure with aluminum honeycomb. In order to reveal the damage characteristics induced by debris impacting on shield structure of spacecraft and aiming at the engineering requirements that spacecraft undergo alternately high and low temperature environment during on-orbit operation, CFRPs/aluminum honeycomb core sandwich shield structure is used as the impact object. The damage characteristics of 2A12 aluminum projectile impacting on CFRPs/aluminum honeycomb sandwich structure with different aluminum honeycomb arm lengths at different impact velocities are studied by using the high and low temperature system for the target and the loading system of two-stage light gas gun. The experimental results show that the arm lengths of aluminum honeycomb have little effect on the perforation area of front and rear surfaces of CFRPs/aluminum honeycomb sandwich structure at high temperature, but the impact speed has a great effect on the perforation areas of front and rear surfaces of rear panels. The lower the impact speed is, the smaller the perforation diameter is. The deformation and ablation areas of the front and rear surfaces of the aluminum honeycomb increase with the increasing of the arm length of the aluminum honeycomb. At the same time, the physical quantities mentioned above have similar changes in low temperature environment. The fitting formulas, such as the relationships among perforations of the front and rear surfaces of CFRP and the arm lengths of aluminum honeycomb, and ablation area of aluminum honeycomb and the arm lengths of aluminum honeycomb are given at the given experimental conditions. The micro-morphology and damage characteristics of the panels and aluminum honeycomb are analyzed at the different locations near the impact point at high temperature.