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Experimental and analytical evaluation of an aerospace thermal protection system: Carbon monolith ablator

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Abstract

A porous carbon material with a three-dimensional (3D) networked structure (carbon monolith) was prepared as a substrate for an ablator, which is a thermal protection system (TPS) for re-entry vehicles. A carbon monolith ablator (CMA) was fabricated by impregnating acrylic resin into the carbon monolith. To evaluate the thermal insulation effect of the CMA, arc wind tunnel tests for the carbon monolith and CMA were conducted to simulate atmospheric re-entry. The results indicated that the surface temperature of the CMA was lower than that of the carbon monolith, and the decomposition of the acrylic resin was effective in preventing an increase in surface temperature, as the decomposition of the resin is an endothermic process. Thermal conduction and stress analyses using the finite element method revealed that the tensile stress that evolved during exposure reached those of typical porous carbon materials, and tensile stress relaxation was required to apply the CMA as a TPS.

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Data availability

The datasets generated in this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgments

The results of this study were derived from the arc wind tunnel tests conducted at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (ISAS/JAXA). The authors are grateful to Takayuki Shimoda, Yuma Yagi, and Tetsuo Yoshida for their assistance with these tests.

Funding

This study was supported by a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (23H01306) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT, Japan).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, 6-3-1, Niijyuku, Katsu-Shika-ku, Tokyo, Japan

    Rina Ono, Kenjiro Tsukamoto, Yutaro Arai & Yasuo Kogo

Authors
  1. Rina Ono
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  2. Kenjiro Tsukamoto
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  3. Yutaro Arai
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  4. Yasuo Kogo
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Contributions

Conceptualization: YK; methodology: RO, KT; formal analysis and investigation: RO, KT; writing—original draft preparation: RO, YA; writing—review and editing: YA; funding acquisition: YK, YA; resources: YK; supervision: YK, YA.

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Correspondence to Yutaro Arai.

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Ono, R., Tsukamoto, K., Arai, Y. et al. Experimental and analytical evaluation of an aerospace thermal protection system: Carbon monolith ablator. MRS Advances (2024). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43580-024-00850-z

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