Characteristics of debris cloud of aluminum foam impacted by hypervelocity mini-projectile

Aluminum foam is a newly developed shielding material for space vehicle due to its good property for debris shielding. Its behavior to shield impact of hypervelocity aluminum projectiles launched by a two-stage light gas gun was studied. The debris cloud's patterns in different times were obtained by using laser shadow photograph, and the velocities of characteristic points of debris cloud were analyzed. Furthermore, the shapes of debris clouds produced by aluminum and aluminum foam targets impacted by hypervelocity aluminum projectiles were compared. It is found that the debris cloud of aluminum target appears to be an elliptic distribution, while the distribution of aluminum foam debris cloud is irregular.