Aerospace Colloquium

The performance of next-generation propulsion systems is defined by materials that must withstand complex, coupled extreme environments. In this talk, I will present two case studies in which micron-scale particles are accelerated to high velocities to investigate supersonic bonding during cold spray additive manufacturing and particle impact damage arising from plume–surface interactions during lunar missions. This work is enabled by a novel high-throughput experimental platform called Laser-Induced Projectile Impact Testing (LIPIT), which launches individual micro-projectiles at controlled subsonic to supersonic velocities and combines nano-temporal high-speed imaging with quantitative post-mortem microscopy characterization. Supersonic bonding experiments on coated and uncoated GRX-810 alloys used in NASA propulsion systems introduce the Oxide Connectivity Index (OCI), a quantitative metric linking fragmented oxide networks with enhanced adhesion and continuous oxide layers with suppressed bonding. In parallel, LIPIT-based studies of regolith particle impacts reveal distinct fragmentation thresholds and damage mechanisms relevant to propulsion hardware during Moon landings.