Development of bumper shield using low density materials

In order to avoid critical accidents due to space debris, this paper proposes an extra bumper shield called an inflatable bumper. It consists of aluminum (Al2024-T3), high strength fiber Vectran and inflatable polyurethane. Because of this inflatability, it is compactly stored during its transportation. And after the installation outside of the space structures, this bumper is then inflated by the effect of expandable polyurethane. This method saves the amount of the transportation and the involved cost. In this paper the experiments, using several polyurethane's with different areal density, have been conducted, compared and evaluated from the viewpoints of the penetrated areal density, the total thickness penetrated, and mass distribution of the fragments captured inside the shield. As the results of the experiments, it is found that the protection ability of the proposed structure depends on the areal density of polyurethane layers and the optimum areal density is 0.525kg/m². And by using polyurethane between Vectran layers, this expandable structure captures the fragments of the secondary debris, which might cause a secondary impact on the space structure.