Molecular Dynamics Study of Impact Velocity Dependence of Structure of Debris Cloud under Hyper Velocity Impact
Keiko NAKATANI, Ryosuke KAYANOKI and Yoshihiko SUGIYAMA
Abstract:A molecular dynamics simulation is carried out to study the hyper-velocity impact fracture at a space debrisfattack to a man-made satellite. A target - projectile system is modeled as a face-center-cubic system which consists of aluminum atoms. Morse potential is adopted as the interatomic potential. Impact velocity dependence of distribution of debris clouds is studied in the different velocity conditions. As a result, the structure of debris cloud of the case of 7km/s impact differs from that of 12km/s. The size of fragment of the debris clouds becomes smaller with increasing impact velocity. The axial component of debris cloud velocities are shown to decrease as target thickness - projectile diameter ratio t/D is increased. These results qualitatively agree well with an experimental result. Key Words:Computational mechanics, Molecular dynamics, Space debris, Hyper velocity impact, Debris cloud,Penetration