CHARACTARIZATION AND EVALUATION OF HIGH-STRENGTH LIGHTWEIGHT ABLATOR USING POROUS CARBON MATERIAL

In order to manufacture lightweight and high strength ablator, we employed a porous carbon material as a preform. Since the porous carbon material has three-dimensional network structure and uniform open-cells, it shows isotropic properties and high strength compared with other porous carbon foam. As a result, compressive strength of the newly developed ablator was 26 MPa, that was 17 times higher than that of conventional ablators using carbon fiber preforms. The strength was sustained even after carbonization, because the porous carbon preform was kept its structure. Furthermore, the recession resistance of the developed ablator in the arc wind tunnel test was equal to that of the conventional ablator. This new lightweight ablator also indicated good thermal insulation performance.