An experimental apparatus was designed and fabricated to measure the effective thermal conductivities and simulate the temperature and pressure history of reentry of a launch vehicle into a planetary atmosphere with a maximum temperature of 1600°C⁠. An improved testing method was used to test the thermal conductivities of an alumina fibrous insulation at environmental pressures from 0.03Pato105Pa with the average temperature of the sample increased to 864°C and its density being 128kg∕m3⁠. A method based on temperature difference is used to compute the in-plane effective thermal conductivity, and the result shows that the in-plane thermal conductivity along the y axis is 1.47 times that along the x axis. The influences of temperature and pressure on the contribution of three heat transfer mechanisms to the effective thermal conductivities were compared.

Issue Section:
Technical Briefs
Keywords:
alumina, heat transfer, thermal conductivity, thermal insulation, effective thermal conductivities, heat transfer, high temperature insulation, in-plane thermal conductivity
Topics:
Heat transfer, High temperature, Insulation, Temperature, Thermal conductivity, Pressure, Testing
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