Speaker
Description
Space structures has to withstand the harsh environment providing protection to the spacecraft and/or the human shelter. These structures have to provide to the hardware and humans multiple functions such as thermal protection, electromagnetic compatibility, debris shielding, etc.
Typically, multi-layered sandwich structures are adopted and they are required to be reusable, lightweight and thin. One of the main components of the sandwich structure is the core, which shall withstand the multiple loads generated by the aforementioned functions and environment.
In this frame, the foam core selection to the specific application is especially important.
For example, in a hyper-fast impact phenomenon with a Micrometeoroid / Orbital Debris (MMOD) the core of the multilayer structure plays an important action in the protection of the spacecraft; in this scenario the carbon ceramic foam core can efficiently contribute in this sense by stopping in its bulk the cloud of splinters originating from the impact against the bumper.
Furthermore, when failure of a multilayer structure occurs, it is usually in the core, because foams have low shear rigidity compared to the sandwich skins.
Among core materials, the carbon foam is one of the most efficient as it offers high stability at high temperatures; moreover, it has intrinsic capacities to offer microwave in order to mitigate electromagnetic interference issues.
The paper analyses a selection of commercial carbon foams in order to evaluate their properties as thermal insulation, microwave shielding and protection from space debris.
An extensive experimental test campaign will be presented as well as numerical analyses of multilayer configuration performed in order to evaluate the use of the foam in a multifunctional structure which has to face different space environments.
| Speaker Country | Italia |
|---|