Papers by Morganti Francesco
7th European Workshop on Thermal Protection Systems and Hot Structures, Jun 2013
The study and the experimental evaluation of aerospace materials is actually one of the most chal... more The study and the experimental evaluation of aerospace materials is actually one of the most challenging and money demanding issues in the aerospace science. In particular the development of thermal protections materials (TPM) can be considered as a relevant goal. For this reason in 2010 Italian Air Force tasked (ItAF) Aero Sekur S.p.A. to develop a thermometric facility (Ground Support Equipment -GSE) able to test specimens of thermal protection materials immersed inside an high speed hot gas flux ejected by aircraft turbine. This ItAF facility has been successfully tested with the support of Flight Test Center of ItAF located in Pratica di Mare near Rome. The facility is able to evaluate flux enthalpy by measuring gas speed, stagnation point and free stream temperatures as well as front and back temperatures in the specimen in order to evaluate the evolution of the thermal flux versus the time. The GSE has been firstly designed to test ablative materials, nevertheless it can be used also for testing different thermal protections materials as those used for hot structures (combustion chambers, nozzles, thermo-structural protections for hypersonic flight). The expected main advantages of this experimental method are: the reduction of the costs compared to arc jet and plasma tunnels, to be quick to use, flexible and adaptable to several applications with negligible impact in the test set up configuration. The drawbacks are mainly concerning the representativeness of the environment mainly for what the ablative materials are concerning, even if the enthalpies which can be achieved are sufficient to activate pyrolysis and to start ablation, therefore the method is considered effective whenever a comparison in performance of different materials is needed. The test was concerning specimens of Silicone elastomer ablative material. The max front temperature achieved on the specimens was 1100 °C in a gas flux having speeds up to 270 m/sec (M=0.4). The specimen started the ablation process which extended to about 1 mm of its exposed surface. The GSE could potentially be used also to assess other materials performance used for aircraft support/protections.
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Papers by Morganti Francesco