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Description
Plasma Wind Tunnel (PWT) tests are used to characterize the recession behaviour of ablative materials under re-entry heat fluxes, providing key data for validating ablation models.
This work has been completed in the context of the LEO Cargo Return Service (LCRS)/ALADDIN program and investigates the capability of porous material models to reproduce PWT experiments. Numerical reconstructions of the experiments are performed using the open-source software OpenFOAM PATO, comparing different models (1D, 2D) and boundary conditions with experimental data.
Results show that recession rates can be predicted within ±20% of experimental data. This work proves the suitability of the software for this use and proposes an approach to simulate PWT tests that can also be applied to obtain a first estimation of the Thermal Protection System (TPS) size.