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4: SHIELDING THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
Pages 27-38

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From page 27...
... In addition, the perforation of a module will be accompanied by a strong acoustic shock wave and an intense light flash that could temporarily incapacitate crew members in the module. Such perforations typically are accompanied by rapid temperature changes and a decrease in air pressure, which can cause an internal fog.
From page 28...
... To achieve this goal, the ISS will employ different shield designs to protect various critical components. In general, the approach aims to prevent internal damage from the nominal threat of an aluminum sphere approximately 1 cm in diameter, over the predicted velocity range.
From page 29...
... Whipple bumper shields and their derivatives can be optimized against a specific threat by modifying the bumper materials, bumper thickness, bumper spacing, catcher material, and catcher thickness. Derivatives of the Whipple bumper concept (such as the stuffed Whipple bumper)
From page 30...
... Figure 4-3 shows some of the many shielding concepts planned for use on the ISS. The ISS shield designs have been extensively tested against the design threat (a 1-cm aluminum sphere)
From page 31...
... These scaling laws can be used both for designing and optimizing shields, as well as for determining which sizes of aluminum spheres are capable of penetrating specific shield configurations. These scaling laws, along with the meteoroid and debris environment models, have been built into the BUMPER code to allow the rapid evaluation of PNPs resulting from various shield configurations.
From page 33...
... Shielding for the Actual Environment As described in Chapter 3, significant strides in defining the orbital debris environment have been made in recent years. As a result of new debris orbit characteristics, the 1996 environment model identifies mean velocity and velocity distribution properties markedly different from those in the 1991 model.
From page 34...
... Therefore, extensive impact testing is critical to the development of improved ISS shielding and to the characterization and validation of the engineering codes (such as BUMPER) used to assess ISS vulnerability to meteoroid and orbital debris impacts.
From page 35...
... The effective application of computational tools to ISS shielding problems could provide methods for optimizing shield design and expanding the investigation of threat/shield interactions outside of the range of practical testing limits. NASA has recently begun using hydrodynamic codes to evaluate shield performance in the velocity regimes where testing is not currently feasible.
From page 36...
... Extravehicular Activities Because of the relatively small surface area of a space suit, the limited exposure times involved, and the light shielding offered by the suits, the primary threat to astronauts performing EVAs comes from particles in the 1-mm size range. NASA has evaluated the EVA suits experimentally, and the meteoroid and debris AIT has a good understanding of the sizes of particles able to perforate the suits for the design threat (Cour-Palais, 1996~.
From page 37...
... The meteoroid and debris analysis integration team should contemplate using advanced shielding materials in upgrades to existing International Space Station shielding and future shield augmentations. The analysis integration team should consider holding a workshop to bring in shielding experts from outside NASA to discuss advanced shielding concepts.
From page 38...
... 1996. Hydrocode Modeling of Advanced Debris Shield Designs.


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