Abstract: All long-duration spacecraft in low-earth-orbit are subject to high speed impacts by meteoroids and orbital debris. As a result, the threat of damage from such high-speed impacts is a major design consideration in the development and construction of long duration earth-orbiting spacecraft. Recent studies have shown that the nature of a spacecraft wall perforation can range from a flat hole with a jagged edge (i.e. a so-called cookie-cutter hole) to a hole accompanied by bulging, cracking, and petaling. If a cracking event were to occur on-orbit, unstable crack growth could develop which could lead to an unzipping of the impacted spacecraft module. It is, therefore, imperative to be able to determine whether or not a spacecraft wall perforation will be accompanied by petaling and cracking. This paper presents the results of a study whose objective was to develop an empirical model that could be used to determine whether a spacecraft wall perforation would be in the form of a petaled hole or a cookie-cutter hole. A petaling limit function was developed to predict the onset of petaling in terms of impact conditions and spacecraft wall system geometry. !14
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