Molecular Dynamics Study of Impact Angle Dependence of Structure of Debris Cloud under Hyper Velocity Impact

Abstract

A molecular dynamics simulation is carried out to study the fractureunder hyper-velocity impact conditions when a space debris attack to aman-made satellite. In this paper, oblique-impact simulations areperformed since most orbital debris impacts are oblique in the realcondition. Aluminum projectile impacts aluminum target at 0−, 30−, and 45−degrees obliquity. Impact velocity is 8km/s, and target thickness-projectile diameter ratio t/D is 0.684. As the angle of obliquity isincreasing, the velocity of debris after impact is decreasing, whilethe deviation of the line of flight is increasing. These resultsqualitatively agrees well with experimental results.