Design of New Carbon-Phenolic Ablators: Manufacturing, Plasma Wind Tunnel Tests and Finite Element Model Rebuilding

• DOI: 10.1007/s10443-021-09925-8
• Publication Date: 2021-07-30T13:03:04Z
• Authors: L. Paglia; V. Genova; J. Tirillò; C. Bartuli; A. Simone; G. Pulci; F. Marra
• Keywords: Charring; Overheating (electricity); Heat shield; Arcjet rocket

Abstract Ablative materials represent a widespread solution for shielding space vehicles from overheating during reentry phase in atmosphere where the high heating fluxes and consequent temperatures cannot be compatible with vehicle structure safety of payload and/or crew. In this work, two different kinds carbon-phenolic ablators density 0.3 g/cm 3 were manufactured their mechanical thermal properties experimentally evaluated. The protection performances developed assessed hypersonic plasma wind tunnel facility, setting representative enthalpy heat flux conditions (6 13 MW/m 2 ), consistent atmospheric missions energy orbits. Data experimental tests compared results obtained by finite element model built up these commercial software SAMCEF Amaryllis. All enlighten good under severe outline operating limits.