Issue 24/2021 - New spacecraft outer protective material was successfully developed

The new outer protective material of the spacecraft was successfully developed

Recently, inspired by the layered structure of natural mother-of-pearl "brick-mud", the team of academician Yu Shuhong of the University of Science and Technology of China has developed a new type of spacecraft outer protective material - polyimide-nanomica composite film
.
Due to the unique biomimetic design, the mechanical properties and resistance to space extremes have been significantly improved, and it is expected to replace the existing polyimide-based composite film materials
.

Different from the previous single-layer structure design of nacre-like nanocomposite film, the researchers constructed a polyimide-nanomica composite film with a double-layer nacre-like structure by changing the composition ratio and using the combination of spraying and heat curing, so that the top layer has a denser nanomica sheet
.
This design strategy not only effectively improves the mechanical properties of the material, but also makes the upper surface more resistant to atomic oxygen, ultraviolet radiation and space debris
.

The results show that the tensile strength, Young's modulus and surface hardness of the new biomimetic composite film are 125 MPa, 2.
2 GiPascal and 0.
37 Gipascal, respectively, which are 45%, 100% and 68%
higher than the pure polyimide film, respectively.

Industry insiders believe that the unique double-layer imitation mother-of-pearl structure design strategy proposed in this study provides new ideas
for the design and construction of other high-performance nanocomposites.