A parametric study of high velocity impact prediction using the Mie‐Grüneisen equation

Abstract

AbstractSpace debris is a serious threat to space travel. Even small fragments are enough to damage or destroy satellites. To protect against space debris, satellites have protective shields, which come in various forms. These shields must be optimized not only for impact protection but also for secondary factors such as weight and size. New shield systems can be tested experimentally with high‐speed guns. This requires a lot of time, energy, and cost. Here, numerical solvers can be used to evaluate these new shield systems. For example, the smoothed‐particle‐hydrodynamics (SPH) method is commonly used to simulate the large deformations resulting from an impact. Special equations of state are used to capture the effects that occur. One such model is the Mie‐Grüneisen equation of state. It is widely used for this application but does not account for the physical effects that can occur at very high speeds. Other, more complex equations of state can cover these physical effects, but they are often not implemented in commercial numerical solvers such as ABAQUS. Here we show that the Mie‐Grüneisen equation of state can lead to quantitatively reasonable results compared to experimental tests of hypervelocity impacts in ranges up to 10 km/s, even though the physical effects are not covered. A parametric study shows that the Mie‐Grüneisen equation of state can be used to predict plate collapse as a function of impactor diameter and velocity for various target thicknesses. Initial designs of new isotropic protective shields for space debris can thus be numerically tested with low effort and cost.