English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Spacecraft structures are subjected to aerodynamic heating during launch and re-entry phases of their operations. The design of these structures poses several challenges to structural designer since the aerodynamic heating, which is the predominant load (Kelly et al., 1983; Shih et al., 1988), induces elevated temperatures that can affect the structural behaviour in several harmful ways: degradation of the elastic material properties, reduction of allowable stresses and generation of high thermal stress due to restrained local thermal expansion/contractions. The success of a re-entry spatial mission in the Earth atmosphere, as well known, is strongly related to the performances of the Thermal Protection Systems (TPSs), which play the most important role (Thornton, 1996). The TPS is the most critical component of a spacecraft since if they are somehow damaged during the mission, a chain reaction can be triggered, leading to a quick propagation of the damage on the whole structure, inestimable economic losses and, above all, losses of human lives. The task of a TPS is to protect the substructure of the vehicle against local and global overheating. In order to ensure the feasibility of interplanetary missions, and in general for the qualification of the critical parts of reentry vehicles, TPS concepts have to be first qualified on-ground and then tested and validated in flight conditions. Thus, Plasma Wind Tunnel facilities have a key role during this qualification process. They should be able to simulate hypersonic air flows encountered during re-entry into Earth atmosphere and to test TPS concepts on full scale demonstrator. Nevertheless, reproducing hypersonic conditions in the wind tunnels is harder, if not impossible, with respect to other motion conditions. As matter of fact, it is very complicated to reproduce simultaneously the enthalpy, the hypersonic speed, the chemical composition of gases and the dimensions of the model, which are the main factors which characterize the motion. As a consequence, a choose is needed between wind tunnels designed for the aerodynamic simulation and those ones designed for the thermal simulation.

SCIROCCO Plasma Wind Tunnel: Synergy between Numerical and Experimental Activities for Tests on Aerospace Structures