TY - JOUR
T1 - Durable and impact-resistant thermoset polymers for the extreme environment of low Earth orbit
AU - Chang, K. M.
AU - Das, D.
AU - Salvati, L.
AU - Dean, L. M.
AU - Keshari, R.
AU - Garg, M.
AU - Dlott, D. D.
AU - Chasiotis, I.
AU - Sottos, N. R.
N1 - This work was carried out as part of the University of Illinois Center of Excellence Phase II: Self-healing to Morphogenic Manufacturing funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR Grant No. FA9550–20-1–0194 ). D.D. Dlott and L. Salvati III, acknowledge the support by the Army Research Office (Grant No. W911NF-19–2-0037 ). The authors would like to acknowledge the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, Imaging Technology Group, and Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for access to their characterization facilities. The authors would also like to recognize Dr. Douglas Ivanoff for helping to synthesize the short chain ester, as well as AlphaSpace, NASA, International Space Station U.S. National Laboratories, and SpaceX for providing access to LEO.
This work was carried out as part of the University of Illinois Center of Excellence Phase II: Self-healing to Morphogenic Manufacturing funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR Grant No. FA9550–20-1–0194). D.D. Dlott and L. Salvati III, acknowledge the support by the Army Research Office (Grant No. W911NF-19–2-0037). The authors would like to acknowledge the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, Imaging Technology Group, and Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for access to their characterization facilities. The authors would also like to recognize Dr. Douglas Ivanoff for helping to synthesize the short chain ester, as well as AlphaSpace, NASA, International Space Station U.S. National Laboratories, and SpaceX for providing access to LEO.
PY - 2023/11
Y1 - 2023/11
N2 - Polymers degrade rapidly in low-Earth orbit (LEO) due to extreme thermal cycling, solar radiation, micrometeoroid and orbital micro-debris impact, and the synergistic erosive effects of atomic oxygen (AO) with UV radiation. In this work, we investigate the synergistic effect of (AO+UV)-induced erosion and high-velocity impact damage on a tough thermoset, polydicyclopentadiene (pDCPD), via erosion yield measurements after a long-term LEO exposure in the ram orientation aboard the International Space Station (ISS) followed by ground-based hypervelocity impact tests. The incorporation of SiO2 nanoparticles reduces the AO-erosion rate by an order of magnitude, while also mitigating the associated degradation of surface mechanical properties. Moreover, the resistance of pDCPD to AO-erosion increases with crosslink density. Hypervelocity impact tests using sub-millimeter laser-driven flyer plates launched at 4.5 km s−1 reveal that pDCPD has higher impact resistance than epoxies with comparable erosion resistance. Interestingly, both epoxy and pDCPD exhibit a statistically insignificant change in impact resistance following surface AO-erosion during direct exposure to space vehicle ram conditions (7.8 km s−1) in LEO.
AB - Polymers degrade rapidly in low-Earth orbit (LEO) due to extreme thermal cycling, solar radiation, micrometeoroid and orbital micro-debris impact, and the synergistic erosive effects of atomic oxygen (AO) with UV radiation. In this work, we investigate the synergistic effect of (AO+UV)-induced erosion and high-velocity impact damage on a tough thermoset, polydicyclopentadiene (pDCPD), via erosion yield measurements after a long-term LEO exposure in the ram orientation aboard the International Space Station (ISS) followed by ground-based hypervelocity impact tests. The incorporation of SiO2 nanoparticles reduces the AO-erosion rate by an order of magnitude, while also mitigating the associated degradation of surface mechanical properties. Moreover, the resistance of pDCPD to AO-erosion increases with crosslink density. Hypervelocity impact tests using sub-millimeter laser-driven flyer plates launched at 4.5 km s−1 reveal that pDCPD has higher impact resistance than epoxies with comparable erosion resistance. Interestingly, both epoxy and pDCPD exhibit a statistically insignificant change in impact resistance following surface AO-erosion during direct exposure to space vehicle ram conditions (7.8 km s−1) in LEO.
KW - Atomic oxygen erosion
KW - Durability
KW - High-velocity impact
KW - Low-Earth Orbit
KW - Polydicyclopentadiene
KW - Polymer nanocomposites
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U2 - 10.1016/j.eml.2023.102089
DO - 10.1016/j.eml.2023.102089
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85174745633
SN - 2352-4316
VL - 64
JO - Extreme Mechanics Letters
JF - Extreme Mechanics Letters
M1 - 102089
ER -