Development of Modeling Approaches for the Prediction of Aged TPS Material Performance

Thermal protection systems (TPS) are required to protect underlying hardware from high-temperature exposure for a wide range of aerospace applications such as hypersonic flight vehicles, solid rocket motors, and rocket side skirts. Because of their favorable ablative properties and ability to withstand high heating rates, phenolic-based materials are critical to many Navy TPS applications. For systems that experience long storage times before being deployed, the carbon material will experience aging processes that may alter the materialÆs chemical, physical, and mechanical properties. The impact of this long-term storage and aging on the viability of the material currently remains uncertain. Recognizing this need, CFD Research has partnered with Kratos SRE to develop and validate a material aging model framework for predicting the material performance of hypersonic vehicle heat shields after long periods of aging (0-60 years). The purpose of the project is to develop a single software package for modeling and simulation (M&S) of the carbon-phenolic material aging and corresponding material property changes as well as corresponding in-flight hypersonic TPS response as a function of the storage time and conditions.