Spacecraft, Heal Thyself

carpdeus writes "The European Space Agency, citing the fact that we don't glue ourselves together when we nick ourselves, has funded a study toward creating a spacecraft that could fix itself. By replacing a few of the fibers in the resinous material that make up a spacecraft's skin with hollow fibers containing adhesive, the material has a chance to fix itself when it encounters minor damage, much the way our skin does when blood wells up and clots. While admittedly years away, such material makes longer duration missions a possibility."

Comments

What about the guts?

[Tablizer]

It is the electronics and science instruments that need the care, not the hull. It would probably be cheaper, and perhaps lighter, to have a tough hull than a complex one than can close itself up. Pits and holes on the outside are not where the problems usually are. Unless, perhaps it is some kind of tank or sealed instrument. However, their process appears way too slow to seal that up fast in the vacuum of space. They are not clear on what is being protected and comparing it to the alternatives, such as gels and styrofome-like substances.

Re:What about the guts?

[mulciberxp]

I think the point is, that when a tiny object crashes into the hull at 20,000mph, its going to do damage regardless of what the hull is made of. This concept is to lessen the inevitable damage.

Re:What about the guts?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand Materials Science.

The idea is to prevent small cracks from developing due to micro imperfections in the material, stresses imposed during flight, small-scale impacts, etc.

If small cracks form, they can then grow and propagate while in flight possibly leading to catastrophic failure.

The material is a composite reinforced with fiber "A" (could be carbon fibers, kevlar, whatever). It has specific strength requirements. The idea behind this technology is to fill this composite with a SMALL amount of hollow glass fibers. They would obviously design it such that the small addition of hollow glass fibers do NOT affect the overall strength of the material in a significant way. The addition of these hollow fibers however, allows for some resin to be stored and release during breakage of the fibers thus reacting chemically with the matrix to seal the crack tip and prevent propagation.

What they would need to do is make sure these hollow glass fibers are properly dispersed in the matrix.

Keep in mind that you can't just "make" the composite out of the resin that they are storing in the glass fibers. This chemical, whatever it is, would need to react with the matrix and "re-polymerize" sealing the crack tip. By itself, this chemical agent stored in the hollow glass-fibers would not be usefull at all to actually make the composite.

Interesting, but is it really Practical

[kfaroo]

The key word in the article is "minor". This would work for small abrasions, but would it really be useful? Think of all the accidents in space we have had so far. None of them would have been prevented by this technology.

Self-Healing Metal

[Adeptus_Luminati]

They'd save themselves a lot of time & money, if they just asked the DND to let them research the makeup of self-healing metal found in Roswell

"I happened to notice when I put that piece of foil in that box, and the damn thing just started unfolding and just flattened out. Then I got to playing with it. I'd fold it, crease it, lay it down and it'd unfold. It's kinda wierd. I couldn't tear it. The color was in between tinfoil and lead foil, about the thickness of lead foil."

From: http://www.qsl.net/w5www/roswell.html
(about 1/2 way down - use CTRL+F)

Adeptus

More like a self-sealing fuel tanks

[Animats]

Self-sealing aircraft fuel tanks date back to WWII. This is a comparable level of self-repair: a material that expands to fill and seal gaps.