Producing ablative thermal protection systems by additive manufacturing

Aerospace vehicles that undergo atmospheric re-entry require thermal protection systems (TPS) to protect them from the extreme environment. Currently, TPS production relies on hand layup techniques which are time-, cost-, and energy-intensive. A method to produce composite TPS via additive manufacturing (AM) is demonstrated, which uses a custom-designed formulation. Thermal characterization of the composite system showed that char yield values were comparable to ablative systems presently used in TPS. Printability was demonstrated by in situ deposition onto a rotating/tilting aluminum substrate. A five-axis printer system was developed/adapted to accommodate the contours of TPS substrates and to enable the extrudate to completely cover leading edges of vehicle control surfaces.