A new HyperVelocity Launcher (HVL) for space science application

Conference · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:5394516

Chhabildas, L C

Very high driving pressures (tens or hundreds of GPa), are required to accelerate flier plats to hypervelocities. This loading pressure pulse on the fiber plates must be nearly shockless to prevent the plate from melting or vaporizing. This is accomplished by using graded-density impactors referred to as pillows.'' When this graded-density material is used to impact a flier-plate in a modified two-stage light gas gun, nearly shockless megabar pressures are introduced into the flier plate. The pressure pulses must also be tailored to prevent spallation of the flier-plate. This technique has been used to launch nominally 1-mm-thick aluminum, magnesium and titanium (gram-size) intact plates to 10.4 km/s, and 0.5-mm-thick aluminum and titanium (half-gram size) intact plates to 12.2 km/s. This is the highest mass-velocity capability attained with laboratory launchers to data, and should open up new regimes of impact physics and lethality studies related to space sciences for laboratory investigations. 14 refs.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-76DP00789
• OSTI ID: 5394516
• Report Number(s): SAND-91-1691C; CONF-920373--2; ON: DE92010670
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
360103 -- Metals & Alloys-- Mechanical Properties
42 ENGINEERING
420500* -- Engineering-- Materials Testing
ACCELERATION
ALKALINE EARTH METALS
ALUMINIUM
ELEMENTS
IMPACT SHOCK
IMPACT TESTS
MAGNESIUM
MATERIALS TESTING
MECHANICAL TESTS
METALS
PLATES
SHIELDING
SPACE VEHICLES
TESTING
TITANIUM
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
VEHICLES
VELOCITY