Material Interface Boundary Condition for Atmospheric Reentry Material Response Implementation into KATS

Thermal protection systems(TPSs) are a necessity on vehicles that encounter adverse conditions such as extreme heat, radiation and oxygen rich environments. TPSs are used on atmospheric reentry vehicles, hypersonic vehicles as well as missiles in order to protect the contents of the vehicle from the extreme conditions. While all of these vehicles require different specifications for their particular missions, they all need to protect the vehicle from the extreme heat flux and oxygen rich environment while not be expensive and heavy. There are two types of TPS; ablative and non ablative. The type of TPS that is chosen depends on the vehicle and environment conditions it will encounter. However, no matter the mission the TPS is a mission critical and expensive to test and manufacture. In recent years there are been a need to create better TPSs that are lighter and less rigid in construction. One of the ways that has been proposed is to layer materials or use coating of materials. For example, there is a large concern for foreign object impacting and damaging the TPS for a given vehicle before it enters an atmosphere. It has been proposed to mitigate the issue using a protective coating that would melt away upon reentry. Since testing these materials is very difficult and expensive, there is a great need for models and simulations to be conducted. This proposal would formulate a material boundary condition for layered materials and implement this boundary condition into the Kentucky Aerothermal System Material Response code that has been developed at the University of Kentucky. The results would be validated using an ongoing project at the University of Kentucky called the Kentucky Reentry Universal Payload System. A successful implementation would broaden the applicability of the KATS MR code to these new layered and coated materials.