Characterization of Damage in Shielding Structures of Space Vehicles Under Hypervelocity Impact

Abstract The cluttering of meteoroids and orbital debris (MODs) on the low earth orbit poses a vast threat to the safety of orbiting space vehicles. Collision between MODs and space structures, a.k.a., hypervelocity impact (HVI), can result in catastrophic consequences, due to the extremely high velocity (of the order of km/s) between MODs and space vehicles. An active linear/nonlinear guided-wave-based approach for characterizing HVI-induced damage in a two-layer aluminum shielding structure (comprised of inner and outer layers) was developed. Aluminum spheres were discharged using a two-stage light gas gun, at an impact speed ∼6 km/s to introduce HVI to the outer shielding layer. Compared to low-velocity impact (LVI), the instant large kinetic energy bore by HVI makes the outer plate penetrated, and then the generated debris cloud furthers impacts the inner plate, with numerous craters left. A hybrid active linear/nonlinear guided-ultrasonic-wave-based damage detection algorithm was proposed, to evaluate the damage on the inner layer. Combining the ease in implementation of the linear approach and the high sensitivity and baseline-free of the nonlinear approach to small damage, the active hybrid algorithm, offers a solution to the in situ perception and monitoring of HVI-induced damage to space vehicles.

[1]  Lawrence E Murr,et al.  The low-velocity-to-hypervelocity penetration transition for impact craters in metal targets , 1998 .

[2]  Qiang Wang,et al.  Modeling nonlinearities of ultrasonic waves for fatigue damage characterization: theory, simulation, and experimental validation. , 2014, Ultrasonics.

[3]  F. Chang,et al.  Detection and monitoring of hidden fatigue crack growth using a built-in piezoelectric sensor/actuator network: I. Diagnostics , 2004 .

[4]  Li Cheng,et al.  Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based Crack Identification in Aluminum Plates with Lamb Wave Signals: , 2009 .

[5]  Dong Wang,et al.  Identification of dual notches based on time-reversal lamb waves and a damage diagnostic imaging algorithm , 2011 .

[6]  Cliff J. Lissenden,et al.  Review of nonlinear ultrasonic guided wave nondestructive evaluation: theory, numerics, and experiments , 2015 .

[7]  Chun H. Wang,et al.  A synthetic time-reversal imaging method for structural health monitoring , 2004 .

[8]  Eric L. Christiansen,et al.  Design and Performance Equations for Advanced Meteoroid and Debris Shields , 1993 .

[9]  Burton G. Cour-Palais,et al.  A multi-shock concept for spacecraft shielding , 1990 .

[10]  Shenfang Yuan,et al.  A quantitative multidamage monitoring method for large-scale complex composite , 2013 .

[11]  Yang Liu,et al.  Use of non-linear ultrasonic guided waves for early damage detection , 2015 .

[12]  Cliff J. Lissenden,et al.  On selection of primary modes for generation of strong internally resonant second harmonics in plate , 2013 .

[13]  Joseph L. Rose,et al.  Active health monitoring of an aircraft wing with embedded piezoelectric sensor/actuator network: I. Defect detection, localization and growth monitoring , 2007 .