A study on hypervelocity impact resistance of the Whipple shield with aluminum spherical micro-airbag superstructure using material point method

To enhance the hypervelocity impact protection performance of Whipple shield against space debris, this paper proposes a three-layer composite superstructure of aluminum ball micro airbags, which is processed and prepared using 3D printing technology. The protective performance of the Whipple shield was studied by constructing a calculation model of a spherical projectile with initial velocity of 7.5 km/s impacting target plate. Following the reliability of the material point method calculation through experimental verification, a three-dimensional numerical simulation of the hypervelocity impact the Whipple shield was conducted. The mechanism of energy absorption and dissipation by the micro-airbag superstructure of aluminum spheres is discussed and revealed through a comparative analysis of the perforation size, debris cloud morphology and its parameters such as velocity, momentum, energy and temperature with those of a single-layer aluminum plate simulated by hypervelocity impact. The results indicate that the Whipple shield with an aluminum spherical micro-airbag composite superstructure possesses significant advantages in enhancing the protective performance against hypervelocity impacts of space debris. In addition, it has been determined that the material point method for numerical simulation of hypervelocity impact problems has high computational accuracy and can be used as an effective numerical experimental method for researching and developing new type of the Whipple shield.