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Experimental assessment of the performance of ablative heat shield materials from plasma wind tunnel testing

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Abstract

A method for assessing the performance of typical heat shield materials is presented in this paper. Three different material samples, the DLR material Zuram, the Airbus material Asterm and the carbon preform Calcarb were tested in the IRS plasma wind tunnel PWK1 at the same nominal condition. State of the art diagnostic tools, i.e., surface temperature with pyrometry and thermography and boundary layer optical emission spectroscopy were completed by photogrammetric surface recession measurements. These data allow the assessment of the net heat flux for each material. The analysis shows that the three materials each have a different effect on heat flux mitigation with ASTERM showing the largest reduction in surface heat flux. The effect of pyrolysis and blowing is clearly observed and the heat flux reduction can be determined from an energy balance.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the partners, Dr. Penelope Leyland (EPFL) and Jean-Marc Bouilly (Airbus DS) in the ESA project Ablation Radiation Coupling (Contract Nr. 4000106422/12/NL/AF) for supporting this work and the feedback to the data analysis. We also thank Lionel Marraffa for continuous support and many fruitful discussions throughout the project. We thank T. Reimer from the German Aerospace Center for supporting this analysis by providing Zuram material samples and J.M. Bouilly for providing Asterm samples.

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  1. High Enthalpy Flow Diagnostics Group, Institute of Space Systems (IRS), University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 29, 70569, Stuttgart, Germany

    S. Löhle, T. Hermann & F. Zander

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  1. S. Löhle
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  2. T. Hermann
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  3. F. Zander
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Correspondence to S. Löhle.

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Löhle, S., Hermann, T. & Zander, F. Experimental assessment of the performance of ablative heat shield materials from plasma wind tunnel testing. CEAS Space J 10, 203–211 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12567-017-0186-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12567-017-0186-0

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