Speaker
Description
Carbon Fibers Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) are used in the manufacturing of pressurized tanks for satellites or launcher upper stages. These composite materials, usually wrapped around a metallic liner, show a strong resistance to demisability when exposed to high enthalpy flows since they fundamentally behave similarly to ablative Thermal Protection Materials (TPMs). The objective of the ongoing GSTP “ Identification of ablation process in porous materials” is to perform an experimental campaign in the VKI Plasmatron and reproduce it numerically using Cenaero tools. Using this joint numerical-experimental approach, the partners aim to extend high-fidelity models developed for highly porous TPMs and enable demisability prediction of dense CFRPs.
The Plasmatron experiments are conducted on tank-shaped scaled samples inspired from Vega’s Attitude Vernier Upper Module (AVUM) pressurized tank. A first batch of CFRP samples has been tested and the material response reproduced numerically. Notably, the quality of this first batch of manufactured samples was affected by some technological limitations which clearly emerged when trying to downscale the AVUM’s tank maintaining similar manufacturing process and raw materials (e.g. fiber tow). A second batch of samples releasing those constraints is currently being manufactured. The presentation will show an overview of the numerical, modelling and experimental efforts.
