Date Available
8-2-2015
Year of Publication
2015
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME)
College
Engineering
Department/School/Program
Mechanical Engineering
Advisor
Dr. Alexandre Martin
Abstract
Space vehicles, while entering the planetary atmosphere, experience high loads of heat. Ablative materials are commonly used for a thermal protection system, which undergo mass removal mechanisms to counter the heat rates. Spallation is one of the ablative processes, which is characterized by the ejection of solid particles from the material into the flow. Numerical codes that are used in designing the heat shields ignore this phenomenon. Hence, to evaluate the effectiveness of spallation phenomenon, a numerical model is developed to compute the dynamics and chemistry of the particles. The code is one-way coupled to a CFD code that models high enthalpy flow field around a lightweight ablative material. A parametric study is carried out to examine the variations in trajectories with respect to ejection parameters. Numerical results are presented for argon and air flow fields, and their effect on the particle behavior is studied. The spallation code is loosely coupled with the CFD code to evaluate the impact of a particle on the flow field, and a numerical study is conducted.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2015.001
Recommended Citation
Davuluri, Raghava Sai Chaitanya, "Modeling of spallation phenomenon in an arc-jet environment" (2015). Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering. 63.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/me_etds/63
Included in
Aerodynamics and Fluid Mechanics Commons, Computational Engineering Commons, Heat Transfer, Combustion Commons, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing Commons, Thermodynamics Commons
