DEGRADATION OF CARBON FIBER REINFORCED PLASTICS DUE TO RADIATION AND PREDICTION OF ITS END OF LIFE VALUE ON MECHANICAL PROPERTY IN SPACE RADIATION ENVIRONMENT

摘要

Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) have been used as structural material for satellite. Recently, CFRP materials have been used for large deployable structure having high surface accuracy. Therefore, superior physical properties and its stability have been required for the CFRP materials. Especially in space, environmental factors such as charged particle radiations, thermal cycling, and etc., exist. So the properties of material may not be preserved in the long time. Thus, the material characteristics on orbit must be guaranteed and preserved in advance. In this research, the variations of bending modulus due to radiations on CFRP for satellite usage were investigated. And then, the variations of bending modulus on orbit were predicted by using semi-numerical simulation method. To identify the cause of CFRP degradation behaviour, the bending modulus of resin used in CFRP were evaluated. From the experimental results, the cause of decreases of bending modulus on irradiated CFRP specimens was not due to the variation of resin used in CFRP specimens.