Load Bearing Thermal Protection Structure for Hypersonic Flight

Hypersonic weapons and vehicle systems require high temperature structures to resist aerothermal loads.Load bearing thermal protection systems can reduce size and weight by 50% or more over traditional parasitic thermal protection systems, such as the tiles used on the space shuttle.This SBIR program will complete the design, scale-up, and validation of multifunctional metallic TPS systems fabricated from thermally insulating syntactic metal composites.These metal matrix composites can be fabricated from high temperature materials, and reduce density and stiffness 40-60%, and thermal conductivity by 80% or more over traditional metals.This new class of structural insulators are suitable for both fabricating load bearing leading edge, acreage, and nosecone TPS structures, but also can resolve critical attachment and load transfer issues with multimaterial TPS designs.By reducing CTE, thermal conductivity, and stiffness, the average panel temperature is reduced, and thermal buckling loads in structural TPS systems can be reduced by up to 80% compared to traditional metallic and non-oxide CMC structures.This program will mature manufacturing processes and fabricate prototype panels for LHMEL arc-jet, and prepare for flight testing on an ISR TBCC concept vehicle.