Design of Economical and Achievable Aluminum Carbon Composite Aerogel for Efficient Thermal Protection of Aerospace
Yumei Lv,
Fei He,
Wei Dai,
Yulong Ma,
Taolue Liu,
Yifei Liu,
Jianhua Wang
Affiliations
Yumei Lv
CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China
Fei He
CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China
Wei Dai
Beijing Institute of Astronautical Systems Engineering, No.1 South Dahongmen Road, Fengtai District, Beijing 100071, China
Yulong Ma
CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China
Taolue Liu
CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China
Yifei Liu
CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China
Jianhua Wang
CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China
Insulation materials play an extremely important role in the thermal protection of aerospace vehicles. Here, aluminum carbon aerogels (AlCAs) are designed for the thermal protection of aerospace. Taking AlCA with a carbonization temperature of 800 °C (AlCA–800) as an example, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images show an integrated three-dimensional porous frame structure in AlCA–800. In addition, the thermogravimetric test (TGA) reveals that the weight loss of AlCA–800 is only ca. 10%, confirming its desirable thermal stability. Moreover, the thermal conductivity of AlCA–800 ranges from 0.018 W m−1 K−1 to 0.041 W m−1 K−1, revealing an enormous potential for heat insulation applications. In addition, ANSYS numerical simulations are carried out on a composite structure to forecast the thermal protection ability of AlCA–800 acting as a thermal protection layer. The results uncover that the thermal protective performance of the AlCA–800 layer is outstanding, causing a 1185 K temperature drop of the structure surface that is exposed to a heat environment for ten minutes. Briefly, this work unveils a rational fabrication of the aluminum carbon composite aerogel and paves a new way for the efficient thermal protection materials of aerospace via the simple and economical design of the aluminum carbon aerogels under the guidance of ANSYS numerical simulation.
