Testing of AblativeMaterials as a Protective Coating for Rocket Launch Pads

Abstract: As the space market grows, demand for sites to host rocket tests and to launch satellites to orbit is expected to increase. During these activities, the launch infrastructure needs to withstand the extreme thermal and mechanical loads associated with the exhaust of a rocket engine. Repeated launches and landings could produce high-speed debris from a damaged pad posing a significant risk to the surrounding infrastructure, the crew and the launch vehicle itself. This thesis investigates the use of Customer Off-The-Shelf (COTS) ablative materials as a protective coating for launchpads. These materials, widely implemented in Thermal Protection System (TPS), sacrifice themselves via endothermic processes to protect an inner substrate. This project shows that an Oxyacetylene Torch (OAT) setup is a cheap solution to simulate the hyper thermal environment needed to measure the ablative and insulation performance of these materials. It can also reliably screen out unsatisfactory materials and rank them on relative merit indexes to provide a reliable final recommendation on the best candidate. The gathered data is then used to provide a preliminary thickness and cost estimate of the ablative coating. A copper slug calorimeter is built in-house and used to measure in a cost-effective way how heat flux varies with distance between specimen and torch tip. The proposed experimental setup is capable of generating a heat flux of 15.85 MW/m2. Further tests are carried out to gather information on the mixing, application and refurbishment procedures of the ablative coating and on other relevant mechanical properties such as flexibility, adhesion strength and failure mode.