Performance Analysis of Ceramic Composite Thermal Protection System Tiles

The need for more speed for hypersonic aviation, reentry, and rocket propulsion vehicles increases as the quest for space and planetary exploration increases; improved materials are needed to withstand the conditions encountered by wing leading edges and propulsion system components in hypersonic aerospace vehicles as well as the extreme conditions associated with atmospheric reentry and rocket propulsion. Reports on arc-jet testing as the best ground-based simulation of thermal analysis on vehicle structure materials under reentry conditions are available but limited. Such tests provide mechanical, thermal, and chemical behavior of materials. In the present paper, a report on analysis through transient numerical simulation using COMSOL Multiphysics for heat transfer by conduction, convection, and radiation in porous ceramic and ceramic composite TPS tiles under reentry conditions is presented. Temperature profile for pure silica TPS tile is obtained in the first phase of the thermal analysis with surface conditions of pressure and surface heat flux equivalent to the reentry conditions. 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D analyses has been conducted in the next phase and studied the response of ceramic composite tile model from the family of ultrahigh-temperature ceramics at higher heat loads as experienced by leading edges.