Enhanced Multiphysics Modeling of Re-Entry Material Damage Initiation and Evolution

ATA Engineering’s Fluid-Structure-Material Interaction (FSMI) Toolset is capable of accurately predicting fully coupled aerothermoelastic and ablation response of materials in high-speed aerothermal environments (such as those encountered by ballistic re-entry systems). The FSMI Toolset provides a means to couple and co-simulate solvers for flow, thermomechanical response, surface thermochemistry and ablation, and material damage models. In this proposed effort, ATA will collaborate with researchers from the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) and UES, Inc., (UES) who, in support of AFRL scientists, have formulated an innovative damage model capable of predicting evolution of material elasticity, damage, diffusion, and oxidation (EDDO). The team will adapt capabilities from ATA’s COMPAS composite material characterization toolset to determine best-fit distributions of EDDO model parameters for a carbon/phenolic (C/Ph) ablator to be manufactured by UDRI and characterized through limited thermostructural testing. The team will then integrate the C/Ph EDDO material model into ATA’s FSMI Toolset and validate predictions of C/Ph response in a representative environment with data obtained from low-cost, combined-loading capstone tests. The validated model will then be used to simulate high-enthalpy testing, and the enhanced FSMI Toolset results will be compared to data from ongoing high-enthalpy test campaigns and prior simulations. The anticipated outcome will be more-confident analytical assessments of mission assurance enabled by more accurate prediction of material damage, and more rapid prediction of part-scale damage evolution due to the EDDO model’s continuum-scale formulation. Phase III commercialization efforts will address applications of interest to end-users such as AFRL researchers and AF customers such as the AFNWC and the GBSD Systems Directorate.