Impact disruption of highly porous bodies simulated by laboratory impact experiments onto pumice targets

Abstract

We performed impact disruption experiments onto pumice targets using two-stage light-gas gun in order to understand the impact disruption process of porous small bodies and to provide reference data for numerical simulations. Projectiles were nylon spheres of 7 mm in diameter and glass spheres of 3.2 mm in diameter. The target porosity was 72 %. The impact velocity was from 1.5 to 4.5 km/s. We showed that the degree of fragmentation increased with the energy density input into the pumice target and also showed that the fragmentation degree was different between the shots with different projectiles. We will measure the physical properties of the pumice target and will compare the experimental results with relevant numerical simulations.