Novel Materials In-Situ Ablation and Thermal Sensing

ABSTRACT: The objective of this project is to design and fabricate multi-signal in-situ ablation sensors based on an acoustic transducer system, thermal measurement system (i.e., either photonic technology or in-situ thermal sensors based on ultra small thermocouples), and fast inverse heat transfer algorithms. This project will use the following approaches: Utilize commercially available optical fibers or commercially available ultra small TC as temperature sensors. Use in-house expertise on inverse heat transfer algorithms to determine temperature profiles. Utilize commercially available acoustic transducer systems for uncorrected time of flight sample thickness measurements. Correct the time of flight data using temperature predictions from IHT analysis. Utilize industry standard carbon/carbon composite and integrate with the proposed ablation and thermal sensing techniques for proof of concept. Utilize a well-controlled labscale test device to evaluate the sensor system. Success of the proposed effort will lead to an affordable and scalable approach to make TPS material systems with in-situ ablation and thermal sensing capabilities for potential Air Force and DoD applications. More importantly, these techniques and manufacturing processes are potentially easy to scale-up and low cost due to utilizing commercially available materials and partnering with TPS material manufacturer in the early R & D stage. BENEFIT: The technology will provide in-situ"ablation and thermal sensing"solutions to hypersonic ground and flight tests of thermal protection system (TPS) for military and commercial applications. This effort will lead to the collection of in-situ experimental data to verify and validate computational methods for the prediction TPS material performance. This effort will lead to improvements in TPS materials development for extreme environments for hypersonic re-entry vehicles and solid propulsion systems. The sensors will provide real-time ablation and thermal measurements during spacecraft re-entry allowing on the fly safety and mission modifications.