Modeling of pitting damage-induced ultrasonic nonlinearity in AL-Whipple shields of spacecraft: Theory, simulation, and experimental validation

•Proposed a dedicated modeling technique to scrutinize the modulation mechanism of various modalities of pitting damage on the probing ultrasonic waves, including craters, cracks and dislocation plasticity;•Established a quantitative correlation between the nonlinear features (i.e., second harmonics) of ultrasonic waves and all possible nonlinear sources attribute of different types of pitting damage;•In-depth, quantitative and detailed characterization of hypervelocity impact-induced pitting damage via the proposed approach;•Dedicated numerical simulations and nonlinear characterization experiments, with results corroborated by theoretical prediction;•Use of a typical dual-layered Whipple shield for experimental validation, with results benefiting real-world space applications.