Fiber substrate-based ablators such as Phenolic-Impregnated Carbon Ablator are composite materials comprising a fibrous substrate and a polymer matrix. This paper presents an approach for estimating selected bulk material properties for the purposes of conceptual design and manufacturing evaluations. A filamentary analog model of the substrate, using a volumetric approximation of the individual fibers, is combined with known properties of the cured resin to approximate the composite material, resulting in closed-form expressions for the virgin density, resin mass fraction, and char yield. Two variants of a low-density carbon felt/phenolic resin ablator were fabricated for comparison to the analytical approximations. Bounds on the material properties were generated from the closed-form expressions and then compared to Monte Carlo results. A linear regression analysis was then used to correlate output uncertainties to those of the input parameters to understand the drivers of material variability.
Constitutive Model of Fiber Substrate Ablators for Conceptual Design
Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets ; 57 , 2 ; 300-308
2020-01-13
9 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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