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Area scaling investigations of charging phenomenaThe charging and discharging behavior of square, planar samples of silvered, fluorinated ethylene-propylene (FEP) Teflon thermal control tape was measured. The equilibrium voltage profiles scaled with the width of the sample. A wide range of discharge pulse characteristics was observed, and the area dependences of the peak current, charge, and pulse widths are described. The observed scaling of the peak currents with area was weaker than that previously reported. The discharge parameters were observed to depend strongly on the grounding impedance and the beam voltage. Preliminary results suggest that measuring only the return-current-pulse characteristics is not adequate to describe the spacecraft discharging behavior of this material. The seams between strips of tape appear to play a fundamental role in determining the discharging behavior. An approximate propagation velocity for the charge cleanoff was extracted from the data. The samples - 232, 1265, and 5058 square centimeters in area - were exposed at ambient temperature to a 1- to 2-nA/sq cm electron beam at energies of 10, 15, and 20 kilovolts in a 19-meter-long by 4.6-meter-diameter simulation facility at the Lewis Research Center.
Document ID
19790015861
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Aron, P. R.
(NASA Lewis Research Center Cleveland, OH, United States)
Staskus, J. V.
(NASA Lewis Research Center Cleveland, OH, United States)
Date Acquired
August 9, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1979
Publication Information
Publication: Spacecraft Charging Technol., 1978
Subject Category
Spacecraft Design, Testing And Performance
Accession Number
79N24032
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
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