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Hypervelocity Impact of Spherical Aluminum 2017-T4 Projectiles on Aluminum 6061-T6 Multi-Layered Sheets

With the growing threat of orbital debris impacts to space structures, the development of space shielding concepts has been a critical research topic. In this study, numerical simulations of the hypervelocity impact response of stacked aluminum 6061-T6 sheets were performed to assess the effects of layering on penetration resistance. This work was initially motivated by set of experimental tests where a stack of four aluminum sheets of equal thickness was observed to have a higher hypervelocity ballistic resistance than a monolithic aluminum sheet with the same total thickness. A set of smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulations predicted a 40% increase in the ballistic limit for a 6-layer target compared to a monolithic sheet. In addition, the effect of variable sheet thickness and sheet ordering on the impact resistance was investigated, while still maintaining a constant overall thickness. A set of thin layers in front of a thick layer generally lead to a higher predicted ballistic limit than the inverse configuration. This work demonstrates an increase in the performance of advanced space shielding structures associated with multi-layering. This suggests that it may be possible to dramatically improve the performance of such structures by tailoring the material properties, interfaces, and layering concepts.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MSSTATE/oai:scholarsjunction.msstate.edu:td-3536
Date08 December 2017
CreatorsMarroquin Salvador, Michael Deivi
PublisherScholars Junction
Source SetsMississippi State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceTheses and Dissertations

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