High Energy Laser Testing of Thermal Protection Materials with a New Diagnostic

The Department of Defense and their contractors are currently limited in their ability to fabricate high temperature thermal protection and structural materials and include those materials in new aerospace vehicle designs without risk of thermally induced material failures which might compromise the new designs. Major improvements in structural designs will be difficult without cost effective material evaluation methods which can be employed before building and flying missiles and boosters. Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) proposes a severe thermal environment simulation using high power laser radiation to screen candidate materials and quantify their responses to the entire range of expected severe heating conditions. While performing the proposed thermal protection material evaluations using a high power chemical laser at HELSTF, we also propose to employ a new real-time surface recession measurement method originated by Southern Research Institute (SRI) in order to quantify the response of thermal protection materials to the simulated high heating rate environment. The successful development of these material evaluation tests and diagnostics will provide a major improvement in the DoD's capabilities for thoroughly evaluating new materials performance prior to and at much lower cost than building prototype components and evaluating them in flight tests. Following a successful demonstration of the laser heating simulation for evaluating severe environment materials, PSI will, with SRI's support, develop a material testing service. We will offer this custom designed testing service to the Army, DoD, and their contractors as an economical method of evaluating materials behavior for missile/booster design and development.