Flow Mechanics in Ablative Thermal Protection Systems

Ablative thermal protection systems have experienced renewed interest in the past decade owing to the retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet and the US presidential mandate to develop technologies that enable humans to explore space beyond low Earth orbit. Blunt body architecture for spacecraft and the use of ablators for thermal protection systems returned as the primary choice in mission planning. This review addresses current progress in modernizing predictive tools for ablative material response. Current theory development leverages progress made in the theory of flows in porous media. This development, combined with progress in experimental techniques and high-end computing, is enabling the development of 3D macroscale models with realistic closure coefficients derived from direct numerical simulations of 3D microscale geometries of actual materials. While flight data quantifying ablative material response remain sparse, the next decade will be one of exploration in which heatshield instrumented spacecraft will provide crucial flight data for refining and validating closure models.