Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Asbestos Phenolic Ablative Insulation

One of the major challenges in high-speed flights is aerodynamic heating. This is why thermal protection system (TPS) is being used. One of the main components of TPS is ablative insulation. In present study, one-dimensional theoretical and experimental analysis of ablative insulations have been done. Phenolic resins with maximum thermal destruction efficiency are being used in charring ablative insulations. When an ablative insulation is exposed to heat flux, its surface gets warmer and as the destruction begins, it produced gases to go out and do cooling. Governing equations of these phenomena have been discretized by the finite difference method and have been solved transient and implicitly. Thermophysical properties have been evaluated by nominal curves and Pyrolysis constants have been obtained by / through the thermochemical reactions. Validation of numerical solution has been done by oxy-acetylene test. By increasing the time, the difference between numerical and experimental results increases. One reason for difference between results could be 1D-modeling, where all of the actual 3D energy is accumulated in one dimension in the numerical solution. Nonetheless, there is good agreement between numerical and experimental results and the average of absolute errors is 7.54%.