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Materials

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Responsible Parties: Page Content: William H. Kinard Page Construction: Thomas H. See

Adhesives

A wide variety of adhesives and adhesive-like materials were flown on LDEF. The majority of these materials were not part of the experimenters' initial objectives but because of the extended mission time these materials became valuable experiments in themselves.

The adhesive and adhesive-like materials flown on LDEF included epoxies and silicones (including lap shear specimens), conformal coatings, potting compounds, and several tapes and transfer films. Most of these materials were used in the fabrication and assembly of experiments, such as bonding thermal-control surfaces to other hardware and holding individual specimens in place, similar to applications on other spacecraft. Typically, adhesives were not exposed to solar radiation or atomic oxygen. Only one adhesive system was used in a structural application.

Nearly 400 aluminum-backed paint buttons mounted on the tray clamps were attached with MYSTIK aluminum adhesive Tape 740-2L. There were no bonding failures of any of these paint buttons.

Solar cells bonded with Shell EPON 828 were lost during flight; however, this adhesive was used successfully at other locations. FEP and Kapton films attached with RTV debonded. However, this failure may have been due to lack of primer and not the adhesive.

Silicone adhesives also provided many localized sources of outgassed material. This is evidenced by the presence of Si on many analyzed specimens taken from near identified locations of silicone adhesive.

This summary ia taken from Analysis of Materials Flown on the Long Duration Exposure Facility: Summary of Results of the Materials Special Investigation Group, NASA CR, May 1995.

The following report addresses LDEF adhesive materials:

H.W. Dursch, B.K. Keough, H.G. Pippin, Evaluation of Adhesive Materials Used on the Long Duration Facility, NASA CR-4646, March 1995.

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