Perspectives on pyroshock attenuation in cylindrical space structures with a bulkhead
AIAA Scitech 2021 Forum
Satellites and launch vehicles are subject to pyroshock events that come from the actuation of separation devices. The shocks are high frequency transients that decay quickly—within 5-20 ms—and can be damaging events for satellites and their components. The damage risk can be reduced by good design practice, taking advantage of the attenuating properties of structural features in the load path. NASA and MIL handbooks provide general guidelines for estimating the attenuating effects of distance, joints, and other structural features in the load path between the shock source and the shock sensitive component. One of the challenges is adequately modeling the dissipative mechanisms in structural features to better understand the risk to shock sensitive components. Previously, we examined the modeling of pyroshock attenuation in a cylindrical structure and used peak acceleration to evaluate how much shocks are attenuated by distance and structural features in a cylindrical structure. In this work, we investigated different quantities to gain more insight into how and why pyroshocks get attenuated by a bulkhead. We found that the bulkhead affects the SRS peak more than the SRS ramp and that approximately 30% of the structural intensity of the pyroshock flows into the bulkhead regardless of the thickness.