Europlanet Science Congress 2020
Virtual meeting
21 September – 9 October 2020
Europlanet Science Congress 2020
Virtual meeting
21 September – 9 October 2020
EPSC Abstracts
Vol.14, EPSC2020-28, 2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2020-28
Europlanet Science Congress 2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Momentum Enhancement Simulations for Hypervelocity Impacts on Sandstone

Sidney Chocron1, James Walker1, Donald Grosch1, Stephen Beissel1, Daniel Durda1, and Kevin Housen2
Sidney Chocron et al.
  • 1Southwest Research Institute
  • 2Univ. Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Two NASA missions that will be launched in 2022 have spun renewed interest in hypervelocity impact of  rocks and metals. This work focuses on the prediction of the momentum enhancement effect, i.e. the extra momentum acquired by the target due to the ejecta flying off the target in the direction of the impactor. Predicting the momentum enhancement with simulations has been elusive, probably because the target material is rarely well characterized. This presentation shows that, given a good knowledge of the properties of the target material and, by adding two essential pieces of the physics (strength of failed material and bulking after failure), the computer simulations can provide good predictions of the momentum enhancement for hypervelocity impact tests performed at Southwest Research Institute.

How to cite: Chocron, S., Walker, J., Grosch, D., Beissel, S., Durda, D., and Housen, K.: Momentum Enhancement Simulations for Hypervelocity Impacts on Sandstone, Europlanet Science Congress 2020, online, 21 September–9 Oct 2020, EPSC2020-28, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2020-28, 2020