KAI, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N221-081

Description

The proposed solution will deliver a high-accuracy multi-physics computational capability for Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) design tool for Navy hypersonic flight calculations. This will be accomplished by a semi-implicit dynamic coupling of a high-fidelity three-dimensional transient aerothermal, material ablation, and shape change code with a finite-element analysis code for structural analysis of the TPS material. Validation of the coupled computational capability will be accomplished by utilizing the detailed material properties data of a model ablative that is relevant to the Navy application that have been previously obtained by KAI. Computational affordability will be enabled by developing adaptive mesh refinement capability and scalability for multi-core high-performance computing during Phase II. Reduced-order modeling will be added during Phase II to enable the computational capability for flight trajectory calculations. Arc-jet aerothermal ablation testing will be proposed in the Phase II to obtain more realistic experimental data for code verification and validation. During the Phase I and Phase II of the proposed research program, an automated process for utilizing the TPS design tool will be developed to perform aero-thermal-mechanical survivability analysis across Navy hypersonic flight trajectories.