The 5th Ablation Workshop was held at Hilton Lexington/Downtown in Lexington, Kentucky on Feb. 28-March 1, 2012. Hosted by the University of Kentucky, the workshop focused on the development, validation and uncertainty quantification of the high-fidelity models used to simulate the behavior of ablative materials. Sessions and comparison activities were held on the various aspects of modeling the surface and in-depth performance of ablative materials, experimental techniques to validate the resulting models, and uncertainty quantification methodologies.

The state of the art of ablation modeling has changed little in the past 40 years, largely because of a lack of validation data with which to justify improvements to the baseline models. However, in recent years significant progress has been made on the numerical side, and it is now time to develop a set of validation experiments to test key aspects of the new and proposed models, quantify remaining uncertainties, and prioritize limited research budgets on those aspects that will have the largest impact on minimizing mass and maximizing reliability of spacecraft thermal protection systems.

Click here to download the workshop agenda. Click here to download the complete workshop proceedings.