Study of composite material behavior in stress situations on board of the International Space Station (ISS)

Project of Space Research and Technology Institute (SRTI)
at Bulgarian Academy of Sience (BAS)

About us

Project Manager:	Asst. Prof., PhD Anna Dimitrova Bouzekova-Penkova
Members:	Asst. Prof., PhD Rositza Nikolaeva Dimitrova
	Asst. Prof., PhD Rayna Boyanova Dimitrova
	Asst., PhD Peter Tzvetanov Tzvetkov

The proposed project is a research project and aims to fully characterize the influence of Space radiation on the new type of composite alloy based on the B95 alloy, developed with ultradisperse nanodiamond and tungsten, developed in the Space Research Department of the Institute of Space Research and Technology.
This is an original project of the team from the Department on the basis of which a technological experiment was planned and implemented on board on the Russian segment of International Space Station (ISS) in the period 2013-2015.
The addition of ultradispersed nanodiamond is developed and protected by a US patent (US Patent Number: 5,353,708, October 11, 1994 г.) by members of the team.

Project implementation period: DEC 2017 – DEC 2019 .

Determination of the influence of Cosmic radiation on the structural and physico - mechanical characteristics of the test bodies made of the new composite material. The results obtained from ground (reference) samples and those returned from the ISS will be compared in order to draw conclusions on the positive and negative properties of the composite material after a long stay in the open Space and an assessment of the prospects for future applications in Space and Space Industry, also for terrestrial applications in extreme conditions.
In the proposed project, the tested test bodies made of aluminum composite alloy were divided into two main groups: 1. Reference bodies that were left and stored in terrestrial conditions and 2. Test Bodies , which were exported to the outside of the Russian segment of the ISS (the International Space Station) for 27 months, during which time they were exposed to the radiation of the Space. The chosen form of the space and reference patterns is in the form of "test tubes" for use in subsequent tests.
During the analysis of the effects of the influence of natural cosmic radiation on the parameters of the samples exposed in Space, data on the real parameters of the cosmic radiation obtained from the Bulgarian RADOM instrument will be used. The instrument worked at the same time in close proximity to Block DP-PM containing samples of the composite material exposed to natural cosmic radiation.