Design and evaluation of additively manufactured polyetherimide orbital debris shielding for spacecraft

•Novel shields were created through additive manufacturing (AM) to protect spacecraft from micormeteroids and orbital debris.•The shields used Ultem 1010 and 9085, which are promising polyetherimide (PEI) materials for aerospace use.•Specimens underwent hypervelocity impact testing and survived proj...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of impact engineering 2025-02, Vol.196, p.105150, Article 105150
Main Authors: Feier, Ioan I., Anderson, Michael L., Boudrie, James R., Jarrett-Izzi, Erin M., Gabriel, Jonathon L., Overby, Kaleb D., Niebuhr, Jason H., Mead, Paul T., Kota, Kalyan R., Lacy, Thomas E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
3D printing
Additive manufacturing
Fused filament fabrication
Hypervelocity impact
Impact engineering
Micrometeoroids
Orbital debris
Polyetherimide
Shielding
Spacecraft
Stratasys
Ultem
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•Novel shields were created through additive manufacturing (AM) to protect spacecraft from micormeteroids and orbital debris.•The shields used Ultem 1010 and 9085, which are promising polyetherimide (PEI) materials for aerospace use.•Specimens underwent hypervelocity impact testing and survived projectiles traveling up to 6.5 km/s.•Specimens were simulated using the multi-physics finite element code CTH.•Analysis shows that CTH can be used as a design tool for AM PEI. The increasingly congested orbital environment around Earth threatens the safety of space assets. Micrometeoroids and orbital debris (MMOD) less than 1 cm but traveling at hypervelocities pose a serious but defensible hazard. Traditional shields are installed during spacecraft assembly and must survive launch loads, constraining their size, shape, and ultimately, effectiveness. Recent advances in on-orbit additive manufacturing have created new opportunities for shield design and deployment. This work describes the modeling and testing of additively manufactured polyetherimide shields. The finite element code CTH was used to model hypervelocity impacts (HVIs) of such shields, and though imperfect, the models were useful for shield design. Several shield designs were additively manufactured and underwent HVI testing with a two-stage light gas gun in the regime of 4 mm diameter aluminum projectile impacts at 5 - 6.5 km/s. All successfully survived the HVIs, indicating their potential effectiveness as MMOD spacecraft shielding.
ISSN:0734-743X
DOI:10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2024.105150