Thermal Response Simulation of Ultra Light Weight Phenolic Carbon Ablator by the Use of the Ablation Analysis Code

Abstract

A space vehicle which undergoes the atmospheric re-entry or a planetary entry needs the heat shield system to protect inner equipments against severe aerodynamic heating environments. Charring ablator is usually used for the heat shield system. In order to design the heat shield system, it is necessary to predict the thermal behavior under aerodynamic heating by ablation analysis. A computer code for charring ablation and thermal response analysis is newly developed for simulation of one-dimensional transient thermal behavior of charring ablation materials. The mathematical model for the charring ablation including basic equation and computational method of ablation analysis is briefly described. A new ultra light weight phenolic carbon ablator called LATS (Lightweight Ablator series for Transfer vehicle) was recently developed. Arc-heated tests of the LATS ablator were carried out and measured results of the temperature response and surface mass loss are compared with the simulation results of the ablation analysis program. The agreement between the results of simulation and measurement is found to be good. It is also found that the mathematical model used in the ablation code can be applied to the ablation analysis of the low density LATS ablator.