Design Blueprint: A Whipple Micrometeoroid Shield for a Habitat Pressure Shell: Bumper Spacing, Rear-Wall Thickness and Mass per Area
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Design blueprint derived from the source paper (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.24145413): This paper presents a computed design for a Whipple shield in which a thin outer bumper shatters and disperses an incoming micrometeoroid before its debris cloud reaches the pressure wall, so protection comes from spacing and disruption rather than from a single thick plate. Status: DESIGN BLUEPRINT — SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED — NOT BUILT. All numbers are simulated values from the source paper's computation, deposited with this blueprint as compute.py and results.json. AI-use disclosure: Dave, an AI research system, assisted with the computation and drafting under the author's direction; author of record William Alexander Aldred.
Author: Aldred, William Alexander
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanics of Materials
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225781898