2006 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Development of quantitative ground-based simulation technology on PEP-MLI degradation under the complex space environment
| Project/Area Number |
17560698
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Aerospace engineering
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| Research Institution | Kobe University |
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Principal Investigator |
YOKOTA Kumiko Kobe Univ., Faculty of Eng., Research staff, 工学部, 教務職員(教育職) (20252794)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
TAGAWA Masahito Kobe Univ., Faculty of Eng, Associate Professor, 工学部, 助教授 (10216806)
OKAMOTO Akio Technology Research Institute of Osaka Prefecture, System Technology Dept., Chief Researcher, 情報電子部, 主任研究員 (20359376)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2005 – 2006
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| Keywords | Space Environment / Low Earth Orbit / Atomic Oxygen / Ultraviolet / EUV / FEP / Synergistic Environment / Erosion |
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| Research Abstract |
Fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) and polyimide are one of the widely used polymers as spacecraft thermal control materials. It is known that these spacecraft materials are eroded by atomic oxygen (AO) in low Earth orbit (LEO). FEP has higher atomic oxygen resistance than polyimide, which is a reference material to measure the AO fluence in LEO. However FEP is sensitive to ultraviolet (UV). Erosion properties of FEP by hyperthermal impact of AO need to be clarified under simultaneous UV radiation exposure conditions.
The experimental results obtained are listed below.
(1) AO-induced FEP and polyimide erosions follow cosine function regarding the incident angle of AO. This experimental result suggests that the reaction efficiency of AO is independent of the incident angle.
(2) UV exposure does not affect mass loss on polyimide without AO exposure; however, the erosion rate of FEP linearly decreases with increasing incident angle of UV.
(3) No synergistic effect of AO and UV was observed on FEP erosion. In the case of FEP, the adsorption of O-atom does not occur by AO exposure and the gasification reaction by AO and that by UV are independent reaction pathways.
(4) EUV from N_2 beam, which can eliminate the effect of AO reaction, hardly influence the mass loss of FEP.
These results of this study can be used to establish the database of spacecraft polymeric materials.
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