Grants and Contracts per year
Grants and Contracts Details
Description
An experimental facility for measuring the permeability of thermal protection system materials
has been constructed at UK under prior NASA funding. The system has been validated against
measurements of well characterized materials including fiberform. Initial measurements of
permeability for other samples of interest to NASA have been conducted with results regularly
with collaborators. The facility has been recently upgraded to permit measurements of tortuosity
for which experimental data on these materials does not exist. In the proposed project,
measurements of permeability and tortuosity will be conducted for virgin samples of candidate
TPS materials with NASA guidance. For the first time, measurements will also be conducted on
samples that have undergone partial charring to represent conditions during the ablation process
and characterize the change in flow properties that occur during dynamic material degradation.
Samples of charred materials will both be provided directly by NASA collaborators and be
generated in our laboratory with an available furnace, as described in the commitment letters.
The materials, sampling conditions, and resulting measurements will be reported to NASA
collaborators at regularly scheduled meetings. These measurements will be conducted by the
Graduate Fellowship recipient, Mr. John Ryan O’Nan. During this funding period he will
complete requirements for the M.S. in Aerospace Engineering. Mr. O’Nan has been responsible
for upgrading the facility for tortuosity measurements and has completed preliminary
measurements as described in this proposal.
Status | Active |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 8/15/22 → 8/14/23 |
Funding
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
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Projects
- 1 Active
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NASA Kentucky Space Grant Consortium Program 2020-2024
Martin, A., Renfro, M. & Smith, S.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
2/4/20 → 2/3/24
Project: Research project