On the novel designs of charring composites for thermal protection application in reentry vehicles

To optimize the performance of the thermal protection system in reentry vehicles subjected to aerodynamic heating, we develop the nonlinear pyrolysis layer model and then present two kinds of novel designs of charring composites. Based on this model, the thermal behaviors of homogeneous and non-homogeneous charring composites under aerodynamic heating are simulated by means of the computer codes that we have written. The numerical results indicate that density variation schemes of novel designs can improve the thermal protection performance of homogeneous composites, e.g. the piecewise linear and the parabola designs have larger effective heat capacity than homogeneous composites. This study will be helpful for the design of charring composites for thermal protection application in reentry vehicles.