Damage of Al-Whipple Shield Rear Wall Caused by Hypervelocity Impact of Al-spheres

All spacecrafts in low orbit are subject to hypervelocity impacts of meteoroids and space debris,which can in turn lead to its significant damage and catastrophic failure.An investigation into the impact damage characteristics has become an important problem for spacecraft protection design.The damage characteristics of the hypervelocity impact of Al-spheres to the rear wall of Al-Whipple shield were studied by the methods of experiment and numerical simulation.By comparing experiment data with numerical simulation results from AUTODYN2D,it is found that the former is consistent with the latter fully.The impact damage law of rear wall of Al-Whipple shield by hypervelocity impact of Al-spheres with the projectile diameters,impact velocity and protection space was analyzed,and the leading factors which affect the damage of rear wall were proposed.