Thermal Protection System Analysis and Sizing for Spaceplane Configurations

Abstract

During its lifetime a space launcher is subjected to extreme heat loads. To protect space vehicles from these heat loads and their resulting temperatures they are equipped with a Thermal Protection System (TPS). Heat loads are typically the largest during flight through the atmosphere. The research question addressed in the thesis is: how robust is a thermal protection system design for a spaceplane wing-body configuration to variations with respect to the design parameters or trajectory taking into account heat transfer through radiation and conduction in three dimensions?

To answer the research question a tool was developed which is capable of designing a TPS and optimizing the insulation layer thickness. Furthermore, a trajectory simulation was made for the reentry phase. From the trajectory specifics the heat flux over the vehicle over time could be generated, which is the source of the temperature increase. In the TPS design tool the first major task is to divide the vehicle into different TPS areas, based on the temperatures that are experienced at each of these areas of the skin surface. A thermal analysis is performed, taking into account both conduction in three dimensions and radiation to outer space as well as to the inner subsystems of the vehicle. From this analysis the maximum experienced temperature can be deduced for each area. When the TPS design is found, it is aimed to optimize the insulation layer thicknesses in all TPS areas. The goal is to find a design that is as light as possible, thus with a minimum insulation layer thickness, while not exceeding the maximum temperatures of the TPS types and underlying structure. A sensitivity study was performed to investigate the robustness of the TPS design resulting from the tool. The performance of the TPS design was tested when small changes were made to it, for the nominal reentry trajectory of the reference vehicle. Furthermore the TPS designs performance was analyzed for small changes in the trajectory.

From the analysis of the results of the developed tool it was found that a TPS design can be developed for a simple wing-body configuration, under the specified conditions. However, the functionality of the TPS design is limited. Improvements must be made to the developed tool to increase its performance, so that it can come to an acceptable TPS design. It is suspected that with suggested improvements the tool will work properly, and a well functioning TPS design can be made. However, further research is required to ensure this.