Abstract:

A division coordinating coupled marching method is developed for the study of the thermal control performances on the thermal protection system (TPS) of an aerospace vehicle in this paper. The aerodynamic heating is calculated by the finite volume method (FVM), and the NND scheme is used for spatial discretization. However, the structural thermal is calculated by the finite element method (FEM). The data exchanges are conducted by the bidirectional mapping interpolation method based on the control surface on the coupled surfaces. The circular analysis example is conducted, and the relative error of the temperature at the stagnation point between the analysis and the test values is 4.95% . The thermal control performances are studied for the TPS on the nose cone of the aerospace vehicle. The maximal temperatures of the tile and the strain isolation pad (SIP) by the uncoupled method are 114.4K and 32.6K higher than those by the coupled method respectively. It is due to that the feedback effect of the temperature rise on the aerodynamic heating is not considered in the uncoupled method. However, the coupled method considers it. The coating with higher thermal radiation rate, the tile with lower thermal conductivity coefficient and thicker size can improve the insulation performances of TPS and reduce the power and weight of the active cooling system effectively, but the maximal temperature of the tile is not sensitive to its thermal conductivity coefficient and thickness.

Key words: Thermal protection system, Coupled marching method, Finite volume method, Finite element method, Interpolation method