Coupled Physics Modeling and Simulations
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Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Hertel, Eugene S..
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The Whipple bumper is a space shield designed to protect a space station from the most hazardous orbital space debris environment. A series of numerical simulations has been performed using the multi-dimensional hydrodynamics code CTH to estimate the effectiveness of the thin Whipple bumper design. These simulations are performed for impact velocities of ~ 10 km/s which are now accessible by experiments using the Sandia hypervelocity launcher facility. For a ~ 10 km/s impact by a 0.7 gm aluminum flier plate, the experimental results indicate that the debris cloud resulting upon impact of the bumper shield by the flier plate, completely penetrates the sub-structure. The CTH simulations also predict complete penetration by the subsequent debris cloud.
A series of experiments has been performed on the Sandia HyperVelocity Launcher (HVL) to evaluate the effectiveness of a thin Whipple bumper shield at impact velocities up to 10.5 km/s by orbital space debris. Upon impact by an 0.67gm (0.87 mm thick) flier plate the thin aluminum bumper shield completely disintegrates into a debris cloud. The debris cloud front propagates axially at velocities in excess of 14 km/s and expands radially at a velocity of ~ 7 km/s. Subsequent loading on a 3.2 mm thick aluminum substructure by the debris cloud penetrates the substructure completely.
An analytical model is presented for converting ballistic limit curves obtained from flat plate projectile experiments to ballistic limit curves based on equivalent diameter spheres. The developed method demonstrates good correlation of the ballistic limit of the shield concept for the flat-plate projectiles to the theoretical ballistic limit for equivalent spheres as predicted by the penetration equations.