Abstract
Sandwich panels are widely used in the design of unmanned satellites and, in addition to having a structural function, can often serve as shielding, protecting the satellites’ equipment from hypervelocity impacts (HVI) of orbital debris and micrometeoroids. This paper provides a comprehensive review of experimental studies in the field of HVI on sandwich panels with honeycomb- and open-cell foam cores, as well as an examination of available predictive models for the assessment of the panels’ ballistic limits. The emphasis of the review is placed on: (i) identifying gaps in the existing experimental database and the appropriate directions for its further expansion; and (ii) understanding the limitations of the available predictive models and the potential for their improvement.
Highlights
To ensure mission success goals, Earth satellites must be analyzed for their ability to survive hypervelocity impacts (HVI) by orbital debris, because collision of a functional satellite with even a millimeter-sized object traveling at typical orbital speed (7 km/s and higher) can be detrimental for both the spacecraft and Earth’s orbit environment [1]
Efforts to design lightweight orbital debris shields have been mainly driven by the need to protect habitable modules of the International Space Station [3,4,5,6], which were designed as pressurized thin-walled structures with limited ability to absorb and dissipate the energy of hypervelocity projectiles
Comparisons were reviewed against results produced by four approaches, referred to as Frost-1, Frost-2, Taylor, and Modified ESA Triple Wall (MET) [25,32,50], where all were fundamentally derived from Equation (2) using equivalent thickness Al facesheets to replace CFRP facesheets and setting honeycomb-core thickness equal to the Whipple-shield bumper spacing parameter [8,32]
Summary
To ensure mission success goals, Earth satellites must be analyzed for their ability to survive hypervelocity impacts (HVI) by orbital debris, because collision of a functional satellite with even a millimeter-sized object traveling at typical orbital speed (7 km/s and higher) can be detrimental for both the spacecraft and Earth’s orbit environment [1]. Assessing the orbital debris impact survivability of robotic satellites requires HVI testing or reliable BLEs (or other predictive models) for sandwich panels, capable of accounting for various impact conditions and design parameters, including, but not limited to projectile material and shape, material of the facesheets, and type and geometric parameters of the panel’s core. Fifty-five impact tests were commissioned in the test program: velocities ranging between 2.02–7.75 km/s, impact incident angles of 0◦, 45◦ and 60◦, and spherical aluminium projectile diameter between 0.0761–5 mm This expanded upon testing conducted by from Ryan, Schäefer and Riedel and Ryan et al, who performed thirty-eight HVI experiments, representing structure configurations from the Radarsat-1, Radarsat-2, Radarsat-3, GOCE and BeppoSAX [29,31]. Resulting ranges were plotted, concluding that the Radarsat-2, Radarsat-3, GOCE and BeppoSAX samples produced similar NBPC; Radarsat-1 significantly underperformed in comparison and is believed to be the result of the Radarsat-1 configuration having a much thicker honeycomb-core
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