Qualification of Ablative Materials in the Arc Jet Facility L2K.

Abstract

Comparative tests on seven different ablative materials from companies in Europe and USA were performed at different pressures and heat flux rates in the arc jet facility L2K. A set of samples was exposed to a low pressure level at temperatures of 173 K and 373 K, in order to simulate the influence of the ageing process in space environments before the re-entry phase of the space vehicles. In total 42 tests were performed at 6 different test point conditions on 7 different samples. At high pressure and low heat flux test conditions compared to other samples the BPD, ALE and SEP samples showed the lowest erosion rates. At moderate and high heat flux rates and high pressure test conditions the lowest mass losses were measured on the ASP and SEP samples. The ASP and MMA samples had the lowest erosion rates at the low pressure test condition. The BPD, ALE and SEP samples showed the best performance regarding the test duration, which is proportional to the absorbed energy in the material. But in comparison with other samples the BPD and ALE samples had remarkably higher initial mass. Except an increase of the erosion rate of the MMA sample, the ageing process on the samples at the space environment conditions before hot tests did not influence the results.