← Back to NASA Technology Projects
Completed TRL 4 (started at 2, targeting 6)
The objective of this task is to develop a high-fidelity ablation material response model for phenolic-based porous ablation materials that will reduce model uncertainty in simulated “ultra” high-enthalpy conditions such as lunar return, sample return or giant planet entries. The effort will enable a new design approach for thermal protection systems by guiding margin policy decisions through reduced uncertainty estimates in performance. An additional benefit of high-fidelity models will be through an improved fundamental insight to performance as feedback to experimental material scientists, which will serve to improve the development of the next generation advanced ablative materials. Overall, the effort will provide a fundamental understanding of material response to high-enthalpy thermal environments, elucidate material property-structure relationships, and provide recommendations for new materials and structures with enhanced application specific properties.
The stretch goal of this task is to have a computational tool with sufficient fidelity that it has predictive capability of the performance of new materials in this class. In this scenario the development of tailored ablator families, guided by computational analysis and with performance verified rather than validated with arc jet testing, becomes possible. Codes developed as a part of this task will be considered Class E software when completed.
This task will be accomplished via a cooperative agreement with the University of California Santa Cruz and their co-investigators, who were awarded a NASA Research Announcement by the Fundamental Aeronautics Program and currently funded by the STMD/Space Technology Research Grants Program.
Phenolic-based porous ablators are mass efficient; however, the fact that such systems are porous highlights the importance of in-depth response modeling with a high-fidelity approach that incorporates the flow and chemistry within the material. Specifically, the following modeling aspects will be considered: properties of resin decomposition, in-depth chemical reactions and reaction rates, subsurface gas advection, and thermal-mechanical properties of char formation and erosion. The task is compromised of an experimental element, a modeling element and a code development element. Although porous phenolic-based ablators are relatively simple binary-constituent composite materials, the majority of existing data is on material system response and little information exists regarding the details of decomposition chemistry needed for a higher fidelity model. The experimental effort will focus on gathering the microstructural and chemical decomposition data needed within the model. The modeling effort will develop phenomenological computation models for resin pyrolysis, finite rate chemistry, and gas advection of the pyrolysis products. The code development effort will focus on the Pyrolysis and Ablation Toolkit for OpenFOAM (PATO) code as the high-fidelity platform to test and compare the new physical models.
The developed high-fidelity model will be used to guide the development of a next generation engineering design tool, which will incorporate modern software engineering practices (including parallel operation). PATO will be used to conduct sensitivity studies on real heatshield design problems in order to determine the relative importance of the “new” physical models to overall design thickness and margin predictions. Those that have significant influence will be then ported to the design tool.
The focus on porous ablators recognizes that these materials are composite systems are intrinsically multi-scale materials. Microscopic effects of the fibers, resin and interfaces as well as large scale effects related to the composite architecture are all important in determining material properties and response to high-enthalpy environments.
Listed on TechPort itself — the most direct way to ask about this specific project.
This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.
None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.