Grants and Contracts Details
Description
Investigation of Spallation in Low Permeability TPS Materials
Ablative thermal protection systems are used to shield space vehicles from intense heating
during atmospheric entry. Although these materials are designed to burn away during descent,
recent missions have experienced unexpectedly high levels of surface recession, particularly in
the Orion heat shield during the Artemis mission. A major contributor to this undesired mass
loss is spallation, a process where particles are ejected from the bulk material into the
surrounding flow. AVCOAT was the selected material for the Orion TPS, and it is suspected the
decreased permeability compared to materials such as Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablators (PICA)
could cause increased spallation during atmospheric entry due to an increase in pyrolysis gas
buildup. Data analysis from recently conducted arc-jet tests on PICA will be used for the
validation and integration of a spallation model into a previously developed Lagrangian particle
trajectory code. The proposed research seeks to investigate the differences in material response
of PICA and AVCOAT as well as make predictions regarding coking reactions and their impact on
permeability.
Status | Active |
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Effective start/end date | 8/1/24 → 7/31/28 |
Funding
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: $79,000.00
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