Perforation Hole Diameter and Ejecta from Aluminum Alloy 6061-T6 Sheets Processed by High-Pressure Sliding

Abstract Space debris running in low earth orbit has the speed of several kilometers per second, which may cause risk of collision against operational spacecraft and satellites. Impact may cause serious damage and may also generate new space debris. Then, a space debris bumper was set to decrease the damage. A commercial aluminum alloy A6061-T6 is being used on the outer surface of bumper shields of the international space station. Further improvements of space debris protection performance are required. High-pressure sliding (HPS) is a processing method to introduce severe plastic deformation in metallic materials and to produce ultrafine-grained structures. In this research, a commercial aluminum alloy A6061-T6 was used as a starting material to investigate the effects of the HPS processing. Results show that 6061 sheets after HPS processing increased strength and effectively decreased the mass and the number of fragments which came from hypervelocity impact.