Study on hypervelocity impact characteristics for honeycomb sandwich with multi-layer insulation

A honeycomb sandwich with multi-layer insulation (MLI) is a kind of structure material being used in spacecrafts. Experiment research and numerical simulation are carried out in this paper. A ballistic limit equation of the honeycomb sandwich with MLI is obtained, and the equation is used to calculate the MLI equivalent thickness of 2A12. A SPH-FE coupled method is introduced to simulate the process of hypervelocity impact on the honeycomb sandwich. The simulation results show that the radial expanding of debris cloud is restricted by honeycomb cores, and the honeycomb cores play an important role in axial flow channeling and distributing of the debris cloud and honeycomb cores play an important role in axial flow channeling and distributing of the debris cloud.